I'm sure many of you out there are planning to get Captain America: The Winter Soldier on Blu-ray or DVD as soon as you can just so that you can finally revisit it after many months of waiting. If you're a regular Amazon user, however, you may have noticed that you can't seem to find the title on the site for pre-order. Searching the online superstore for the Marvel Studios film reveals links to purchase the movie digitally and to the first movie in the solo franchise, Captain America: The First Avenger, but no sign of any editions Captain America: The Winter Soldier on any physical format. So what's the deal? Apparently it's an unfortunate side-effect of two companies feuding over a business deal.
Variety is reporting that a standoff between Amazon and the Walt Disney Company is resulting in upcoming Disney titles not being listed for pre-order on the shopping site. In addition to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which will be in stores on September 9th, other titles being affected by this deal include Muppets Most Wanted (n stores tomorrow, August 12th), Million Dollar Arm (October 7th), and Maleficent (November 4th). Neither Captain America nor Million Dollar Arm have Blu-ray/DVD pages on the site, and Maleficent only has a landing page that suggests you sign up to be notified about the release:
The report doesn't mention exactly what the source of the conflict between Disney and Amazon is, but you may recall that a similar clash occurred earlier this year between Amazon and Warner Bros. At the time, the online shopping site wasn't posting pre-orders for titles like The LEGO Movie, Transcendence and 300: Rise of an Empire. That squabble was over the share that Amazon got for DVD sales, and while figures were never revealed, a deal was eventually reached. As Variety points out, Disney's home video site is currently directing potential buyers towards both Walmart and Best Buy instead of Amazon.
Weirdly, Disney's next home video release is Muppets Most Wanted, heading into stores tomorrow, and that title is actually listed on Amazon for pre-order. It's possible that the big difference is our proximity to the release date, and Amazon's desire to not miss out on what could be a good chunk of change from Muppets Blu-ray sales. Hopefully this matter between Disney and Amazon will resolve itself sooner rather than later and consumers will just be able to buy they movies they want without having to be bothered with the politics of business deals.
