Musings & Thoughts for Friday, October 8, 2021, or: When Preordering New Blu-ray Releases Becomes a Game of ‘Hurry Up & Wait’

Posted byAlex Diaz-GranadosPosted inAmazon, Blu-ray Collection, Coronavirus (COVID-19), COVID-19 Pandemic, Movies, Paramount Home Media Distribution, The Stand (2020)Tags:, , ,

Photo by Soubhagya Maharana on Pexels.com

Hi, there. Dear Reader. It’s early afternoon here in New Hometown, Florida on Friday, October 8, 2021. It’s a hot, muggy “autumn” day in west-central Florida. The current temperature is 85˚F (30˚C) under partly sunny skies. With humidity at 72% and the wind blowing from the west-southwest at 3 MPH (5 KM/H), the heat index is 99˚F (37˚C). The forecast for today calls for thunderstorms in the afternoon and a high of 86˚F (30˚C). Tonight, we can expect more thunderstorms and a low of 72˚F (22˚C). The Air Quality Index (AQI) is 58 or Lightly Polluted.

This morning I checked my Amazon account’s Orders page to see if the status of my preordered Blu-ray set of The Stand (the 2020 reimagined miniseries that premiered on CBS All-Access, not the 1994 one which aired on ABC). I was hoping that I’d see an Order has shipped message there. Alas, I was greeted with this message instead:

Order received

(C) 2020, 2021 CBS Studios/Paramount Home Media Distribution

We will email you when we have an estimated delivery date.

As I said a few days ago in On Blu-ray Collecting: The ‘Pre-Order Gremlins’ Strike Again, I am aware that:

  1. There is a worldwide supply-chain distribution backlog due to the COVID-19 pandemic
  2. Amazon (and other retailers) have no control over the supply-chain issue
  3. ViacomCBS releases are prone for missed release dates
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’m not going to hit the Cancel Order button on Amazon and reorder from Best Buy or DeepDiscount.com. The shipping/distribution issue affects every retailer, and since Paramount Home Media Distribution is relying on disc replication facilities in Germany as well as the woefully overstretched North American replication plant (which I believe is in Mexico), I don’t foresee any changes in my order status.

Thankfully I have the 1991 Complete and Unabridged edition of Stephen King’s novel, as well as the 1994 mini (King adapted the novel himself, and Mick Garris directed the four-part epic about a post-apocalyptic final battle between good and evil.) on DVD and Blu-ray.

Still, it would be awesome if Paramount Blu-rays were less vulnerable to these missed “drop days,” It seems that every time I preorder anything from this studio – be it The Stand, Indiana Jones, or Star Trek – I end up receiving my packages two weeks later.

Ah, well. I’d rather get my Blu-rays later than never.

Still, this “new normal” is annoying!  

Published by Alex Diaz-Granados

Alex Diaz-Granados (1963- ) began writing movie reviews as a staff writer and Entertainment Editor for his high school newspaper in the early 1980s and was the Diversions editor for Miami-Dade Community College, South Campus' student newspaper for one semester. Using his experiences in those publications, Alex has been raving and ranting about the movies online since 2003 at various web sites, including Amazon, Ciao and Epinions. In addition to writing reviews, Alex has written or co-written three films ("A Simple Ad," "Clown 345," and "Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss") for actor-director Juan Carlos Hernandez. You can find his reviews and essays on his blogs, A Certain Point of View and A Certain Point of View, Too.

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