Simon Pegg and director Robert B. Weide made a little movie called How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, but the irony is that its the North American distributors of the film are giving a far better example of Alienating and losing friends. Pegg and Weide are not happy. In fact, they would prefer you DON’T buy their movie.
Seems that all the extra work they did for the bonus features will appear on the Region 2 release, but the Region 1 release? Not so much.
Weide in an official press release. “Simon and I worked very hard to make sure the DVD would be packed with bonus material. The British distributors (Paramount) solicited our input and included all of the extras. Sadly, the American distributors (MGM/Fox) locked us out of the process and managed to leave off most of the bonus material.”
I can really appreciate Pegg and Weide going public on this. This will have one of two results, if not both.
First, this elevates the two of them to Firefly cast status of fanservice. Their reaction seems to come directly from their desire for fans to enjoy their work as much as they did making it. They want to share with those who appreciate the film. They are steamed that it would be ok for the UK fans, but not the North American audience. Awesome of them to go to bat for the fans!
Secondly, this could rally into a fan back lashing against the distributor causing them to reconsider their efforts. The fans buy movies because they love them. And DVD’s contain stuff about the movies that are fun and interesting that you couldn’t experience in the theater therefore making it worthwhile to even bother picking up the damn thing to begin with!
Or not.
Just sayin.
