Batman Begins and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to be released in Q3 (1 Viewer)

Courtesy of Video Business Online:


Full article can be found HERE.

Personally I don't really care much for Harry Potter, but Batman Begins in HD I can't wait! The fact that it should be released anytime in the next two and a half months is awesome.
Also, it says "some of its premiere titles" so there could be even more! Warner, if you're listening, THE MATRIX and TERMINATOR 3... pretty please.

ACTUALLY, it's Q4.
News released just right now.

NEWS

Also mentioned being released at that time.
Twister, Matrix Tril. Shashank and Lord of the Rings Tril

Lord of the Rings.....F'ing awesome!

While Hi-Def Digest states it's Q4, Video Business states it's Q3. Since the Hi-Def Digest is using the Video Business article as its source, I will stick with the Q3 annoucement.

Yeah, High Def Digest's source is VB, and the VB story says nothing about Shawshank, Matrix and LOtR.

There are also already two threads about possible street dates for Batman Begins and Goblet.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...d.php?t=237333

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...d.php?t=235945

I don't suppose we can hope for the expanded editions of LOTR trilogy?

Well the LOTR trilogy is mentioned as a coming soon release on the official promotional website of HD-DVD. Whether it's the original or extended cuts of the three movies is yet to be seen.

Wow, if Batman Begins AND LOTR are going to be out this year, I'm sold. I'll be getting an HD-DVD player in the fall now, more than likely.

from the August 10 Hidef Digest page...

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...Rev ealed/167

Nice! GOBLET OF FIRE in Dolby TrueHD...

Oh really? You better put your money where your mouth is now. When Batman Begins, Superman, Superman II, Superman Returns, The Matrix Trilogy, Twister, Harry Potter and other titles hit the street during the 4th quarter, an HD-DVD player will be harder to find than "Waldo."

Pretty sweet, I wonder when they'll bring out Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in high-def.

Well, unfortunately LOTR won't be out this year. At least according to New Line at a recent discussion panel. They said they are going to hold off and see how the markets grow before starting to release stuff (no earlier than January 2007).

But Batman will definitely be here. I hope we see some info about it like this Harry Potter info sooner rather than later.

Still hoping both of these make it in Q3!

Somehow I doubt they will be that hard to find. If anything, I'd imagine that you will see more of them made available to meet the increased demand.

this doesnt make sense to me.
doesnt putting out product cause the market to grow.

Yep, but it is the main reason why all of the studios don't give us many (if any) of their big titles very early on. They feel they sell the most of any title when it it "newly released". So they don't want to release the big titles until there are more people to buy them. But since the big titles are not available, people are slower to buy the new format. It is classic chicken and the egg.

Warner Brothers probably could have given us some of their bigger titles earlier this Summer (Batman Begins, The Goblet of Fire, The Matrix, etc...) but we're probably not getting them until late Third Quarter or the Fourth Quarter because they think they'll sell more in a shorter amount of time (since more people will have players) than if they released them in early June.

I still don't see why in a situation like this a studio doesn't release at least one or two major titles very early on. This would help the amount of players purchased grow faster. Then they could always re-press a larger run of the title a year later and promote it (throw in some kind of lame bonus disc or whatever) and now they'd have their larger base to sell to. That would seem to be a win-win (except for the losers who complain about "being forced to double dip"). But it just doesn't seem to work that way.

Any way, New Line basically feels like since they don't have a large catalog of titles to begin with, they want to wait until the beginning of next year to see how things have developed with both formats. Then they'll start deciding what they want to release and when.

I'll find their statement and post it here. Maybe not until later tonight or tomorrow.

According to DVDTown, GOBLET OF FIRE is being released on August 29th. Don't know how accurate that is, but keeping my fingers crossed.

Wow. Aug. 29. Amazon likes to hold you off...then boom-it's here. No complaints though.

Here is what I read about New Line Cinema:

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/news/
Scroll down to "Studios Outline Fourth Quarter HD DVD Release Plans; New Line to Sit Out 2006" on August 8th.


Disappointing. I still expect great HD DVD titles from NLC early next year, but I'd prefer them this year. If they don't get LOTR out by late spring, I'd bet it won't be out until late Fall (since dick seems to get released during the Summer).

Yeah, I hope the August 29th date is accurate. It certainly seems reasonable.

But I'm not holding my breath either.