The rest of Universals '07 slate...no Hitchcock? (1 Viewer)

[Paul Arnette]

I think that this in conjunction with what Paul said, and the double-edge sword that is the PS3 are all factors in less classics being available currently for BD. Hopefully, as BD player prices come down and more stand-alones enter the market this trend will change.

Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread too much from its intended purpose, but thanks for discussing it with me.

 

[Marc Colella]

If classic American films are few and far between (especially on Blu-Ray) due to low demand in the HD formats, what hope is there that we'll see foreign films?

Release these and I'll happily jump aboard, otherwise I sit with my money in my wallet.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Well some are available as imports.

 

[Tim Glover]

I wish every Blu-ray backer had some of Paul Arnette's tone. Pretty cool Paul, pretty cool.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Who says they're not on their way....

 

[ppltd]

This actually makes a great deal of sense. If we assume that the vast majority of PS3's were sold to gamers, not videophiles, what would be the biggest BD movies releases to sell? Films like Casino Rayale, Hell Boy, Night at the Museum and the POTC films. These high profile, effects ridden action movies would have more appeal to the Hardcore gamer then would a movie like Casablanca.

 

[Paul_Scott]

Bd as a format has some honestly "good" titles available- that is titles that have been well reviewed, were well liked by genral audiences, and were good sellers on sd dvd- from Bd exclusive studios as well as from Warner and Paramount. Warner especially has made available some great catalog fare for them.
The format also adds 50,000 new potential users every week via sales of the PS3. These are users that are just starting to buy content for the player, whether it is games or movies or both.

and yet week in and week out, what titles top the charts for Bd? Whatever happens to be the new release for that week.

To me, that is the most depressing statistic yet.

 

[Jason Roer]

Paul,

Same goes for SD-DVD. It's always the new release that sells the most. And yes - that is rather depressing when the new release is something like Ghost Rider or some other gigantor action extravaganza, effects heavy; brains light. But that's what sells. That's why Hollywood continues to make these films. People go to them; people enjoy them. Not sure where I'm going with this - so I'll just end here. OK. Here. No really - here.

I'm like the guy in college who said he was leaving your dorm room now. And then was still there an hour and a half later.

Cheers,

Jason

 

[ScottR]

I wouldn't look for The Wizard of Oz until 2009. To tell you the truth, the Gone With the Wind restoration from 2004 doesn't look as good to my eyes as it did when it came out, especially one shot that appeared to be overlooked (and looked worse than the same shot in the 1998 version). That scene also ends a couple of frames earlier than it ever did before. Every shot before and after looks a lot better. So they can fix that, along with some other minor problems. Oz looks pretty good as is, although there are a couple of odd blips on the radar in the form of print damage that could be corrected, along with restoring Judy's missing line fragment whether it was a 1939 mistake or not.

 

[Bradley-E]

The Universal/Amblin titles, E.T., Back To the Future, Schindler's List, Jurrasic Park, Cape Fear, etc are Universal owned titles that were produced under the Amblin production company. Munich is a Universal/Dreamworks (Amblin) production and actually may be more difficult to get an okay for. I think Spielberg did not want his titles released on Standard DVD initially until there were at least 1 million players in homes, My guess the same would apply for HD DVD. There is rumor that JAWS is being worked on and this Fall Universal could release E.T. for its 25th Aniversary, Warner is releasing Poltergeist so it could happen. But ultimately Universal owns these films and pretty much could do whatever they want with them.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Actually all of the Spielberg directed films after E.T. are owned by Spielberg and he has complete control of them. Of the ones done for Universal, Universal has distribution rights in perpetuity. Spielberg has a deal not unlike the deal that Hitchcock had for most of his films from the 50s on.

Doug