1954 "Godzilla" DVD Over-saturation?

Above, the Japanese original Godzilla DVD is being reissued by Classic Media. Photo by Toho Co., Ltd.

With the new Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures Godzilla coming out next month, companies with Godzilla licenses are jumping to take advantage of the high public awareness of the new movie and the Godzilla character.

Classic Media is planning to release a reissue of their DVD on May 13. It will be sold as Godzilla, King of the Monsters in new packaging and will have both the Japanese and American versions and the extras that were issued previously.

I have to wonder how this DVD reissue will do in sales. It seems to me the market is already over-saturated.

Classic Media originally put out the original Japanese version along with the Americanized Raymond Burr version (Godzilla, King of the Monsters!) back in 2006. The set with these versions was called Gojira. The set, to my understanding, did quite well in sales at the time.

Later, after sub-licensing the video rights to Criterion, the two movies (with different extras) were given the "Criterion treatment" of digital restoration that totally "blew away" the versions offered by Criterion in 2006 and were offered in Blu-ray and DVD sets in 2012. The restoration work was outstanding. These sets are still available. Classic Media released a Blu-ray of their 2006 set a year earlier. Many fans passed on that and went instead for the Criterion Collection Blu-ray.

While I understand the reasoning behind Classic Media's taking advantage of the new movie to get "their piece of the action," I would think that hardcore fans already have either the previous Classic Media or Criterion Collection sets (or both, as I do) and just pass on this. Naturally, they are probably hoping that non-hardcore fans will grab this in their excitement over the new movie. We'll see.

To be quite honest, if it were me and had I not already purchased the earlier Classic Media and Criterion Collection sets, I would pass on this reissue and grab instead the 2012 Criterion Collection set while it is still out in stores. The difference between the Classic Media and Criterion Collection versions are like night and day!