I typically stay out of the business side of show business. Reporting on companies losing money or shutting their doors forever is pretty boring, and if I wanted to talk about corporate mergers I’d be working for a business site instead of an entertainment one. Unfortunately every once in awile a piece of news comes along on the business side that we have to report on, and this is one of those times.
We missed it a week ago, but Variety Asia reported that Tartan USA has been shut down. The US distributor’s demise came to the attention of the paper when they received a public foreclosure sale that included the inventory and film library of the company, which consisted of 101 film titles, including Oldboy, Election, and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.
The news struck Variety as odd, especially with such short notice. In fact, there’s no disclosure of any financial woes on the official Tartan USA website, even a week later. So what happened?
I’m disappointed to read about the end of Tartan USA because they were bringing some impressive movies into our country. Frankly, some of them were movies that mainstream distributors probably wouldn’t lay a hand on (even a Hollywood adaptation of Oldboy proved too taboo for studios). We need a studio like Tartan who is willing to handle some of the controversial and artistic movies. Sadly, someone else will have to handle it, because, by the looks of things, Tartan USA is no more.
