[Chris S]

DVDActive.com just posted the following:

Quote:

Originally Posted by DVDActive.com

Universal Home Video has announced the first November wave of HD DVD releases. Arriving from the 14th November will be King Kong ($39.98) starring Naomi Watts and Jack Black, The Hulk ($29.98) with Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly, and Waterworld ($29.98) starring Kevin Costner. Each will carry a high definition anamorphic widescreen transfer, along with English, French and Spanish Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround tracks. Extras should be identical to the discs already on the market. The runtime for King Kong confirms that it will be the theatrical cut of the film, and not the new extended edition. Stay tuned for art.

Finally a big event title hits the high def format!!

[Chuck Mayer]

$40?

Kong will sell me a player, but that's a steep price for software.

[dpippel]

The high MSRP indicates that Kong will probably be a combo disc, which doesn't bode well if the HD side is only 15GB. Let's hope it's a 30GB.

[John Troutman]

The high MSRP might also indicate a two-disc release, MI-3 style, which would make sense given the extreme length of the film. Disc one for the movie, disc two for the buttload of extras.

[Tim Glover]

It will probably be on Amazon for around $27 or so. I noticed that on some other combos or titles that listed for $39.98. Still, that's pretty high.

I'm guessing KK will look rather spectacular on HD-DVD. Can you imagine the Kong-VRex fight in 1080p and Dolby Digital Plus...

Neighbors will be calling the police on this one.

[Jesse Blacklow]

You'd think for a flagship title like this, they'd throw in at least Dolby TrueHD (since it sounds like DD+ is roughly equal to regular DD). Nor is it the Extended Edition, which doesn't bode well for the LOTR EEs. One or the other would have been nice, but to have neither when there will already be other titles coming out with both extended cuts and lossless audio sounds like they're aiming for a re-release. And it's possible that it's a combo disc? They better hope the name is enough to make it the killer title everybody says it will be.

[Robert Crawford]

The studios consider any film released on video within the first 12 months of it's theatrical run a new title, thus, it's priced higher than a catalogue title like Waterworld and The Hulk. It's just another way for them to recoup some production costs still on their books that are associated from making the film.




Crawdaddy

[Tim Glover]

If it were up to me....and it's not, if it's indeed a combo disc-I would have the theatrical edition on one side, and the extended version on the other. But that's just me.

And, so far, Universal, while exclusively in the HD-DVD camp, has not released any titles with Dolby TrueHD yet.

[Marc Colella]

There's no way it's a combo disc with the HD side being 15GB.

The movie runs too long and there's too much going in for it to fit comfortably on a 15GB side.

[Jesper]

It might be the first "30/9" combo disc...

[Ed St. Clair]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jesse Blacklow

You'd think for a flagship title like this, they'd throw in at least Dolby TrueHD (since it sounds like DD+ is roughly equal to regular DD). Nor is it the Extended Edition, which doesn't bode well for the LOTR EEs. One or the other would have been nice, but to have neither when there will already be other titles coming out with both extended cuts and lossless audio sounds like they're aiming for a re-release. And it's possible that it's a combo disc? They better hope the name is enough to make it the killer title everybody says it will be.

KK 1st DD?

What I dislike about this is it breaks HD DVD's string of delivering the extended version!
Bad break!

Quote:

King Kong on HD-DVD Nov 14th!

That's no fun!
What are people going to complain about now?
Oh, yeah!
V, Batman, Harry...