Little Shop of Horrors
Warner Bros. Home Video
1998
On November 1, 1996, the DVD format hit store shelves for the first time in Japan, before spreading across the world in 1997. Much like its predecessor, the Laserdisc, this new disc based format came to the market with a hefty price tag which wasn't appealing to many average movie buyers. As such, in its infancy, this new disc based system was labeled the video format for the film connoisseur.
With another format war starting, this time between DVD and DIVX. Though the battle was short, the feud was fueled by studios leaning heavily into one format over the other, making it difficult for buyers to find the movies they wanted during these early years.
One of the bigger names to back DVD was Warner Bros. Home Video, who would release the 1986 musical, Little Shop of Horrors on February 23, 1998 as a Special Edition. This copy remained on shelves for just a few days before it was recalled, and later replaced with a revised version. This sudden removal didn't allow for many copies to be sold, making the film scarce.
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| Reissued DVD |
This in turn made the original version skyrocket in price, making it the first DVD to also increase in value on secondary markets. Soon, people were paying upwards of $100.00 to own Little Shop of Horrors. But, why? What happened to suddenly make the cult classic film the most valuable DVD in the world?
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| "Special Features" as noted on the back of both the original release and reissued DVD covers |
Even in its infancy, one of the lures to DVD was the inclusion of special features, and this is what it all came down to on this particular release. On the back side of the disc, where these extras were housed, there was a black and white alternate ending, which showed the entire original ending to the film. This was something, which to date, had never been shared outside of the film's initial test screenings. However, the problem all came down to rights and approvals, which belonged to, and were the discretion of Producer, David Geffen.
Geffen said, "They put out a black-and-white, un-scored, un-dubbed video copy of the original ending that looked like s**t." The studio was forced to remove the DVD from store shelves, and replace it with an alternate version which didn't include the special feature. As word spread, prices rose, and thus the first collectible DVD was born. To this day, the original version remains difficult to find. This, again, is because so few copies were sold during its brief time on shelves.
Prices have since subsided, mainly because the original ending was restored in full color, and included on the October 9, 2012 released Director's Cut. However, for those looking for a true "special edition", the original 1998 release may very well be the one and source for fans to see the unaltered black and white print, which featured no sound effects, music ques, or special effects.
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