The movie Ron Howard wants everyone to see, but can’t show them: “You can’t find it anywhere”
It boggles the mind that in this day and age, with so many ways of watching movies, some of them remain incredibly difficult to find. It’s pissing Ron Howard off, too, especially when so many people keep asking him about it and he doesn’t have an answer.
Even though there are far too many streaming services to choose from, countless online platforms where you can buy or rent films, cinemas that specialise in screening or re-releasing older titles, endless TV channels to scroll through, and DVDs, Blu-rays, and the rest of the physical media market, some flicks just can’t be found anywhere.
There are Netflix movies that aren’t on Netflix anymore, just like there are Disney and 20th Century Fox movies that have been scrubbed from Disney+, which entirely defeats the point. Howard would love nothing more than to have people from all over the world gather around the screen and watch Cocoon on either a disc or streamer, but they can’t. Why? He doesn’t have a clue.
It’s been 40 years since the filmmaker’s Academy Award-winning sci-fi dramedy was released, where it did solid business at the box office. The picture was backed by Fox, which was acquired by Disney in 2019, so the obvious conclusion to be drawn was that it would show up on the company’s streaming platform eventually. In the meantime, Amazon? Nope. YouTube? Not the whole thing. iTunes? Nada.
It didn’t, and it still hasn’t, so what about buying it on DVD or Blu-ray? No dice. The standard edition of Cocoon has been out of print since 2004, and it hasn’t been released on any physical format since a limited edition 30th anniversary release a decade ago, which has created a black market of sorts where copies have been known to trade hands for hundreds of dollars.
“You can’t find it anywhere, and it’s very frustrating,” Howard confessed to MPA. “I’ve consulted with various business affairs executives, but I still don’t fully understand why it’s so difficult and why it’s tied up. Friends of mine are constantly asking me about it and saying, ‘I want to show my kids Cocoon, but I can’t find it’. I think the best you can do is go on eBay and buy an old DVD.”
Anyone who wants to purchase a copy for themselves runs the risk of being drawn into a bidding war, and since he probably didn’t think to get his hands on physical copies of his own movies, Howard has absolutely no way of showing Cocoon to anyone who wants to see it, or watching it himself, unless he goes online shopping, which he probably can’t be arsed doing anyway when he’s got more important things to do.
It’s strange that the filmmaker, who also founded and operates a production company and has spent virtually his entire life in the industry, couldn’t even hazard a guess as to why Cocoon is in danger of escaping from the cultural consciousness. If you’ve got a copy, then hold onto it for a while, because it’s only going to get more valuable.
