James Bond Blu-ray Collection Three-Pack, Vol. 4?? - Page 4

John Cork (producer of the making of films on the DVDs) claims that Broccoli purchased this 50% stake of Danjaq back from UA in the mid-1980s, when it looked like UA was going to crash as a result of the Heaven’s Gate disaster. My understanding is that MGM (and Sony) only have a distribution deal and Danjaq is sole owner of the Bond films.

By the way Eon is a production company only and doesn't own anything. Danjaq is the copyright owner.

Doug

Thanks Doug!! I appreciate the clarification. I didn't realize there was a difference between Danjaq and Eon! 

Well they are both companies that are owned and run by the Broccoli family. The difference is mostly a legal one.

Doug

Ron,
Any word that you are able to relate to us yet? Your efforts are much appreciated and I know there are many of us checking every day for a bit of info.

Nobody has gotten back to me yet.  I will contact MGM
later today and see if they can provide us with something
official. 

Just to update all of you, MGM has responded and
promised an update later this week.  Remember --
they want this to be an official statement so you
can imagine they want to get all their ducks in order
before just saying anything off the cuff.

Please be patient.  They are interested in getting
some kind of response out to all of you.

Thanks Ron! Great effort on your part and great that they want to get some info to the fans here. I agree, I'd rather have good info, then speculation or guesses.

Thanks Ron!  It's appreciated!

Thank you Ron! I really appreciate the update!! 

From one Bond fan to another, thanks Ron!

Really great news. 

Thanks for pursuing this for all of us, Ron.  I cannot wait to have an update, no matter what it is.  

 I've figured it out! MGM has been waiting for the huge Bond anniversaries for 2010. A View To A Kill's 25th anniversary and Goldeneye's 15th anniversary. 

I'm sure updating the extras on the discs for the films and doing proper anniversary editions of both is the reason for delay. 

It'd be cool if John Cork produced a new "Inside Goldeneye" documentary for the film and other "Inside.." docs for the films after.

I certainly hope this is the case since Goldeneye is probably the last Bond movie I want on Blu-ray. Hopefully it will be good news and not bad.

Folks,

I was promised a response from the studio this week and
it never came.

What I am about to post is my own personal thoughts which
should probably be obvious to most of you.  

If anyone has been reading the trades then you know MGM

is in a lot of trouble and looking to sell off its library of films.
The JAMES BOND titles are the cream of that crop.  I know
Warner is one of the companies looking to buy the remaining
MGM library and I am certain SONY may want the Bond titles
back.

It is also rumored that the Bond titles did not sell as well
as the studio had hoped on Blu-ray.  

Now certainly, this is all speculation and in no way am I
speaking for the studio.  I had hoped that we would have
gotten some sort of statement from them, but under the
current economic climate at MGM I am thinking it is 
impossible for them to issue a statement on the future
of Bond releases.  

Fox and MGM are usually very good at answering any
inquiries we have.  If they don't answer there is usually
a good reason why.  Therefore I ask all of you to consider
what I have speculated above. 

Thanks Ron. It's unfortunate MGM is in such troubles. I have not read all the trades, so I don't know all the issues with MGM. It's just unfortunate.

Which all trickles down to what happens to the Bond titles as to who will own them and then who will issue the blu-rays. I hope the less then stellar sales of the blu rays is not indicative of the publics interest in the Bond titles, but more about the bad economy and the public's likely lack of interest to invest in hi-def hardware and software yet. 

I'm sure we'll have the story from whoever will end up with the rights and when they'll continue to release Bond titles soon enough.

 Many of the Bond Blu-rays i didnt buy until they got a bit cheaper. The price was insane, even after the retail discount.

Its a catalog set, that most of us had just upgraded to the new UE sets a year or two before. Not to mention the UE was expensive as hell when they came out.

So, it was a hard sell, to want to upgrade so soon, and for the premium price...again.

For me, the biggest problem was that they flooded the market with so many titles so quickly. I'm more of a casual Bond fan (I enjoy the movies but I'm not a die hard fan like some of the folks in this thread) so re-buying so many movies all in a small space of time just made me give up and not even worry about having any of them on Blu-ray.

That was a problem due to the Ultimate Edition DVD's being just released a few years before. However, the main problem I believe was the usual high cost and at the time they were release I hadn't even converted to Blu-ray. So far I have purchased Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger and I am thinking of getting Live and Let Die as well for about an average of $15 per movie which is pretty good for a Blu-ray disc and I believe they were around $25 per disc when they were first released which in my opinion is too much. Hopefully after the MGM sale goes through they release more Bond Blu-ray's at a cheaper price especially since these are catalog titles and not new releases

Thank you Ron. I appreciate the follow up, even if there isn't official word from MGM. 

I've picked up all of the Bond films on blu ray except 1 thus far. The picture and audio on the blu rays is outstanding and they have been a huge upgrade from the UE DVD's. 

Hopefully by the time things at MGM are sorted out the other 9 films will have stronger sales. 

I also hope that blu ray's value in terms of picture and audio is not lost on the older fans who already have the UE DVD's or dvd's of the flms.

Unlike the original Star Trek films (1-6) or Rocky films, MGM and Fox have pulled out all of the stops for the James Bond films in HD on blu ray.  

It would be nice to see increased sales on older titles that have proper mastering and audio work done for HD blu ray. Sometimes quality should outweigh product cost. 

I agree about the UE DVDs being part of the problem. I bought the complete collection at one time for around $100 less then 2 years ago, replacing my older DVD's. Since that time I have only watched a few of the newly mastered DVD's.  The UE's are at least the 3rd time these have come to DVD and each time it seems like for a limited time.  The UE's also seemed to be pushed heavily during the end, making them hard to resist.  In addition the UE's are a great release coming from the (I believe) same masters as the BR disk. Obviously, the BR disks have other advantages regarding resolution and sound but that doesn't take away how good of a release the UE's were.

Now moving forward, I recently purchased a BR player and have a decent projection system, but I just can't justify buying these again so soon. You can only go to the well so often within a period of time.  I even found a great price at Amazon a few weeks ago that only seemed valid for a day that had the 10 BR pack for $78 (< $8 a film). Even though I didn't get it, My father-in-law did who happened to have the older DVD release.

I'm sure they were expecting a big return on the BR's, but I bet they got a solid return on the UE's earlier and probably should have known that there was going to be a shared consumer base between the two releases.

Each of these sets have offered, for me, an improvement. I only bought the first collection from 2000 and the UE sets that recently came out. I agree it would hurt to go from the UE to the BD's. 

I guess I felt it was worth the purchase given how much of an improvement the BD was over the last UE. I am speaking mainly of the early Connery's. And I had hoped to see the framing of the UE version of Goldeneye fixed when the BD came out.

For me, the $59 or so I paid wasn't too bad given how good Dr. No, From Russia, Goldfinger and Thunderball looks! I really want to see what On Her Majesty's Secret Service will look like! I wished the Star Trek films looked this good!

After the many problems with the UE DVD
set I had hoped that the BD releases would
be corrected -- especially since the members
of this forum put together a list of problems
with those releases and we forwarded it to
John Lowry who supervised those transfers. 

My biggest gripe was the opening credit 
sequence of LIVE AND LET DIE.  They totally
botched it up on the DVD UE releases. with
the colors being noticeably off. However, upon
the film being released to BD, I was very
pleased to find the problem corrected.

I am anticipating that many of the problems
that we reported were taken care. 

I have all 4 volumes of the UE DVDs plus some of the recent Blu-rays...it's safe to say I'm James Bond-ed out at this point. I love the movies but really, when does it end?

Well, I never owned a single Bond on DVD or any other format.  I'm getting them and seeing them for the first time on Blu-ray.  So it really sucks that it seems we won't be seeing more in the near future.  But I can always go back and re-watch the ones I have.

I actually own the iTunes HD version of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and compared to the UE it fixes the issue with the blue filter used in the pre-title sequence that the UE had and the rest of the film's colors seem more saturated and faithful compared to the UE DVD which look a little washed out in comparison to the iTunes HD version. 

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Agreed. I am also glad that the BD of Thunderball has a more beautiful color schemes compared to the somewhat washed out colors of the UE and the sound on the BD sounds more faithful to the original mono than the 5.1 track on the UE.

Wal-mart had Bond singles on Blu-ray for $10 Canadian over the Christmas season. They must have had about 10 titles. I picked up Goldfinger and From Russia With Love. I like Bond movies but am not a diehard fan. There are maybe three more titles I'd like to get that Wal-mart did not have. I don't want to buy the boxed sets as I am then obligated to purchase movies I don't want.

I saw that problem of the UE DVD's coming in 2006 and then the films started showing up on blu ray in 2008. MGM has gone to the well a few too many times. 

However that being said, if you are a Bond fan you will not be disappointed with the audio and video quality of the Bond films on blu ray. I just had the UE DVD of OHMSS on and then switched over to The Man With The Golden Gun blu ray. Wow. There's a huge jump in terms of picture and audio, IMO. 

Anyway. It will be curious to see where all of this ends up in terms of the rest of the films on blu ray and the possible sale of MGM studios. 

This discussion makes me think that the MGM marketing department may have seen two markets here. They knew the blu rays would be coming soon. But they probably saw blu ray initially as a niche market. At the time, the economy had not tanked yet.

They probably knew that the average Bond fan would like to own the UE DVD set, but wasn't interested in high definition. The high definition re-release was meant for the hi-end and home theater enthusiasts. 

That's my guess.

I've bought the run of Bond films many times, from CED (you read that right) to VHS (twice!) to DVD to Blu-Ray, and never have the films looked better than they do on Blu-Ray. I maintain that the likes of Dr. No has never been seen looking this good and this clear, not unless you were present when they filmed it.