DISNEY WITHOLDING JOHN CARTER DISCS FROM NETFLIX, RED BOX

Last February, the Walt Disney Co. quietly changed its policy of making DVD releases available to Redbox and Netflix on the same day that they went on sale in stores, but, unlike Universal and 20th Century Fox, it did not offer the two principal rental companies deep discounts on the DVDs in return for accepting the embargo, the Los Angeles Times reported today (Friday), citing people with knowledge of the situation. Disney, said the newspaper, “wanted more favorable terms than its competitors had received, terms to which Netflix and Redbox would not agree.” The upshot is that Netflix and RedBox are currently buying Disney’s box-office flop John Carter from big-box retailers like Walmart and Target and making them available to customers within a day or two after their release in retail stores. The Times also noted that Disney has also imposed the 28-day-delay on Blockbuster, the struggling company that may not have the wherewithal to purchase disks at retail.