What a shocker.
Just 24 hours after being blackballed by HBO Max for “racist depictions,” Americans were quick to try and snatch up a copy of “Gone With the Wind“ on Blu-Ray and DVD. The film got a major boost by becoming the number one bestselling film on Amazon’s best-sellers sales chart for TV and movies early Wednesday morning, even though both DVDs and Blu-ray discs were already sold out.
Meanwhile, on Apple’s iTunes movie chart for the U.S., “Gone With the Wind” skyrocketed to the No. 5 spot (after “The Hunt,” “Birds of Prey,” “Bad Boys for Life,” and “The Invisible Man”).
The 1939 American classic was pulled from HBO Max after the streaming company got some major flack due to an op-ed by “12 Years A Slave” screenwriter John Ridley published in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. The gist of the op-ed had to do with Ridley calling on HBO Max to "consider removing" the film from its platform because the Best Picture Oscar didn’t just “fall short” with regard to representation, but also ignored the horrors of slavery and “perpetuated some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color."
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.