I’m wondering why, now that Jumanji has finally gotten to the top of my Netflix queue, it is listed as having a very long wait. Last week, when it was #3 on the list, it said “long wait,” although my experience has been when netflix says that it doesn’t really mean it. However, now it’s at the top, and I’m getting the two next in line.
I believe when I first put it on there it, like most of my netflix picks, said “available now.”
In other words, why the run on this movie? Anybody have any ideas?
I don’t think it’s really that hard. Netflix has a vast trove of statistics to munge. For any given movie, they know how many are in inventory and how many are out, and they know the average amount of time they have to wait to get one back, and the average amount of turnaround-time to get it out again.
I can beat that. I recently had a 43 year old movie (To Kill a Mockingbird) listed at very long wait, although at the moment it’s listed as short wait.
Another Netflix queue oddity, I had a movie in my queue for two and a half months listed as short wait.
Yeah, I had Maria Full of Grace listed as a Long Wait and the next one in line was a kid movie, so I figured I’d get the kid movie–and I got MFoG (and no kid movie), so I don’t know about their Very Long Wait.
Also, I had put one of the Star Wars movies on the list and it, too, appeared as Very Long Wait just as it was getting to the top. Hey! I should have been in line in front of some other people since it had been on my queue for so long! (Like Jumanji in that it was not any kind of wait when I first put it on there.)
If it’s that cheap, I’d just spend the money and buy the DVD. You might even find it used for less.
I just looked over my queue, and I’ve got some strange stuff listed as “short wait”. Network with Peter Finch, for example. And The People vs. Larry Flynt. I can’t figure out why two old movies would have a wait attached to them.
Slight hijack: can anyone tell me how the movie Jumanji compares with the original novel? And is Zathura a sequel to the movie only or based on another novel?
I haven’t read either of them either, but I understand that Jumanji ends with the wee protagonists leaving the game in a public park – and seeing a couple of neighbor kids carting the box home.
In Zathura, the action follows these boys – who, as it turns out, aren’t interested in a jungle game, and serendipitously find the space-themed game “Zathura” hidden in the “Jumanji” box.
So it’s a direct sequel, although its protagonists are barely mentioned in the first book.
You’ll see older movies, movies with less demand, as having waits precisely because Netflix maintains so few copies. Whereas they have a few hundred (thousand?) copies of really hot current movies like “Million Dollar Baby” across all of their nationwide centers, they have maybe a total dozen of something like “Jumanji,” and when there is the rare reason for the movie to gain enough relevance to be rented (like a sequel coming out), those dozen are demanded harder than Netflix had foreseen.
FTR, my “wait” list:
Being John Malkovich - Short Wait
Dirty Pretty Things - Short Wait
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the new movie version) - Long Wait
In the Bedroom - Short Wait
Serial Mom - Long Wait (now there’s one that seems to fit my description above…)
The Skulls - Short Wait
Spy Game - Short Wait
I’ve also seen “Day For Night,” “Fletch,” and “Neil Young and Crazy Horse Live” drop from my queue to my saved list because upcoming special editions and/or no longer printing the originally procured DVDs (all of them following a “Now” > “Short Wait” > “(Very) Long Wait” > Saved List progression).
Jumanji is currently out of print. There is a 2-disc Special Edition due to be released on Nov. 8th, but whether or not Netflix will stock it is anyone’s guess.
If this were a newly-released film, I’d wager it’s because Netflix hasn’t bothered to stock any copies. The smoking gun can be seen in certain music titles whose release dates get pushed back at the last minute. For instance, Yes: Live at Tsongas was originally scheduled for Feb 2005, then got pushed back to June, and again to August. Netflix didn’t get the memo on the date change and as a result, listed the DVD as “Very Long Wait” from Feb to April. Obviously a popular movie like Jumanji will get stocked right away, but fringe titles occasionally get the shaft. The little-known independent film Dear Frankie, for example, has inexplicably been listed as “Very Long Wait” since its DVD release two months ago.
Probably not, I’ve never noticed a “run” on any titles related to an upcoming theatrical film. The Narnia BBC versions, for example, are all currently listed as “Available Now”, and there was no change in the availability of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy BBC production prior to the recent film last spring.
The death of a major star, on the other hand, CAN cause a run on certain titles. I’ve seen this happen with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Pantera’s 3 Vulgar Videos from Hell. Also, there was a run on All the President’s Men when “Deep Throat” revealed himself last summer.
