I was wondering if any US movie studios will think twice about whom they choose to distribute their movies internationally due to this format war.
Thoughts?

That's not the way it works...

It's usually at the level of financing a film...or when a film is done (and these are independently), a film sales organization sells the rights to the film in different territories to various distributors. All they want is Money. If a major studio produces a film, and it's a very expensive one, they may take additional partners to spread the risk.

It's not like I'm Giant Hollywood Studio "A" and I'm making a new picture. So then I select people in different territories to distribute my film. The big studios have worldwide distribution networks, so if they produced and self-financed the film, they will have worldwide rights on it.

But these days, the film industry is very entrepreneurial, with a great many independent producers and financiers. So frequently a film is made independently of a big studio, then the rights are acquired by distributors in various territories. That's where you see "split-rights" deals most frequently. The studio has no say in who distributes the pic in territories that they didn't acquire.

Eric

Interesting enough, Universal has the distribution rights to much of the Sony Video catalog for Scandinavia.
That mean foremost that Universal has to distribute Sony BD movies in the region.
I tried to find out if that meant that Universal could do as Studio Canal and produce these BD exclusive movies on HD-DVD for the region and sell them via Internet to the rest of the world.
Some industry insider claimed that was not possible.
I'm not convinced yet, but its a intriguing notion.

Interesting enough, Universal has the distribution rights to much of the Sony Video catalog for Scandinavia.
That mean foremost that Universal has to distribute Sony BD movies in the region.
I tried to find out if that meant that Universal could do as Studio Canal and produce these BD exclusive movies on HD-DVD for the region and sell them via Internet to the rest of the world.
Some industry insider claimed that was not possible.
I'm not convinced yet, but its a intriguing notion.


Universal would not sell them via the internet to the rest of the world, but there's nothing stopping Scandinavian-based dealers from doing so.

Eric