Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Aside from Warner, BD seems to be getting movies from two categories: New releases, and things that PS3 owners will buy. I'm not sure Fistful of Dollars is perceived as fitting in either.

Also, it's in the MGM library, which comes out via Fox, and they're not putting out anything.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

What are things PS3 owners buy?

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Basically, movies primarily appealing to 15-25 year-olds. Action movies and (male) youth-oriented comedies. At least, that's what seems to be the priority from the BD-exclusive stories.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

A Fistful Of Dollars is a Fox title.

edit: Oops, didn't see that Jason Seaver already posted this.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Let me think about it.....

Ok, I'd say: "Crank", "Crank", "Crank".

Did I already mention "Crank"?






IMHO, a major marketing failure of the "BD only" "cartel", not to release "classic" films on BD. The only interesting "classic" from Sony was the cancelled "The Professionals". What a shame.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Well, I own a PS3 and I don't own CRANK. I'm not in the 18-35 demo, but I guess 18-35 year olds who own a PS3 must be a smart breed, considering that BD sales of a nature documentary (planet earth) have been quite strong.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Didn't you notice the " "?

I own "Crank" myself btw...

But fact is that we are missing titles on BD like "Fistful of Dollars", "The Professionals", more classic Columbia Westerns, the 50's "epics" like "The Robe", "Demetrius and the Gladiators", Hitchcock, the James Bond collection, "Bridge on the River Kwai", "Lawrence of Arabia", classic SciFi, Fox's John Wayne films, Sony's "Dr. Strangelove" or "Major Dundee"............

Instead we get..... well, "Crank".....

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Yeah, I'm just saying that this appears to be what those studios think the PS3 owners want, based upon what they release. Especially those that bought the PS3 primarily for games rather than as a movie player. How much truth there is to it, I don't know.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

This was initially announced by Fox to be released on Blu-ray Disc around the same time as the forthcoming SD boxset. Since Fox has bowed out of BD, taking MGM with it, presumably until BD+ is available, I wouldn't expect to see this title until Q4 at the earliest.

I've already got the boxset pre-ordered, as I was anxoius to ditch the PAL speed-up of my R2 SEs. I don't think you'll see Duck You Sucker, for example, on BD for a long time.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

I agree, which is why that's the only title in the set I pre-ordered - gladly ditching the R2 PAL.

Though I'm sticking with the previous R1 versions of the Dollars trilogy for the time being (unless in the next 6 months it starts to look like Fox won't be returning to HD).

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

They seem to love to release these films around Father's Day, so I'd say that's the next best release window to hope for.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

"For a few Dollars more" Blu-ray is out in Italy:
DVD-Heaven Bildvergleich: For a few Dollars more HD

Sadly, only in Italian...

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

The DOLLARS films would be released by Fox which, at this stage of the game, would overprice them and drop half of their SD bonus features. Be glad there's a delay, so Fox has time to get its act together.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

I believe they´re MGM-titles...

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

...which are distributed through Fox Home Video, at this time.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

The question is how much control does a distributor (Fox) have over the entity of MGM. I suspect only managing pressing, packaging, distribution and pricing.

They may also have a stipulation regarding using DTS-MA - it's obvious Fox has some kind of exclusive contract with DTS.

I highly doubt Fox as a distributor calls the shots on what MGM titles get released and when, the quality of the transfers and the content (or lack thereof).

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Cool, and I hope you're right--Fox's pricing I can (barely) deal with, but how they treat bonus features is always the deal breaker for me.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Yes, but is "Fox" the one making all decisions when it comes to titles, audio, extras, etc, even in MGM-releases? Not sure that can we "blame MGM" for "Fox-titles" and "blame Fox" for "MGM-titles". Whatever happens, we blame them for something, of course....

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Sure, as Jim K noted above. And, as I mentioned to him, I desperately hope you're right. Man, nothing could send the message better to Fox if MGM releases with bonus features done right sailed off the shelves, but Fox titles with absent or truncated extras just sat there. Bummer if Fox still holds the noose of pricing...

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

Patton and the Sand Pebbles are coming soon.

not a new release so i guess those are for the ps3ers.

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Good to hear, since the SD restorations of the DOLLARS trilogy didn't quite go the distance for me (in comparison with, say, the SD of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST); having said that, I get a little nervous about studios going the cheaper route of digital restoration, since the available film negative(s) are still left fading away as the years go by...

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

I'm glad to see that there's a new restoration underway, since those SD/HD screencaps in the link posted above are less than impressive.

Shame it's a digital restoration though, they should have gone all out for the release of these films...

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

It was always my understanding that MGM makes the decisions regarding their catalog and Fox simply distributes for them.

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

These movies are some of my most wanted releases. For A Few Dollars More is one of my favorite movies but I held off buying the rereleases in hopes of a Blu-Ray Leone boxset. I really hope we get the original mono audio tracks and a branching option for TGTBTU. That would make me very happy.

Wha...Wha...Whaaaaaaaa!

Re: Fistful Of Dollars on Blu-Ray?

It's too bad Warner doesn't have the rights to these films or maybe they could have included them in their batch of 4k restorations. That "restoration" linked to sounds like it could be dangerously close to a de-graining job a la Lowry. Hopefully they won't decide to "fix" anything but the dirt and film damage.

And I think the quality of the Italian BD is perfectly fine for film from 1964 by the way. I would have no problem buying a release which looked like that.