Ghu bless Diznee/Touchstone and Wes Anderson for their Criterion relationship...they're about the only major player left in town who'll do business with them on their major "prestige" stuff.
This has been the rule ever since DVD became the ca$h cow it now is, and the studios moved against outsourcing their popular DVD hits to middleman producers, unlike the niche laserdisc years. With Criterion getting the shaft vis-a-vis the mainstream movies (Robocop, Silence of the Lambs, Trainspotting) that *used* to pay the bills for the other 95% of their catalog. Only a scant few dribbles in recent years (like Traffic, Royal Tenenbaums, and the occasional Cronenberg) manage to slip into their hands through the studio money-train sieve.
Mostly.
Although one could take issue with the fact that Criterion's now dancing to the industry tune by releasing "alternate" one-disc/two-disc versions, a la the majors...which might in fact be imposed by Disney as a conditional.
Still.
