To date, Paramount has announced exactly three titles that I have even the slightest bit of interest in. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. The three? Sleepy Hollow, Trading Places, and The Untouchables. For a film company with such a vast catalog, I find that extremely perplexing and disappointing.
For those of you who are interested in Ghost, I am happy for you though.
I have no interest in Ghost, but if you choose to release another supernatural-romance-mystery by the name of Dead Again along with it, I will have "blackout buying" incidents.
Seriously, I'll probably pre-order both HD DVD and BD copies just to make sure I can see it under any circumstances, and then walk out of Newbury Comics with another copy on release date with no idea how the bag with the movie got in my hand just because I saw it on the shelves.
Anyway, thank you for releasing something more than a couple years old, and please do more.
I like Ghost too. I found it quite funny when the SE DVD came out. I thought, "Didn't that just come out on DVD?"
I noticed they had both versions side by side at Best Buy for the same price, $9.99. I already have the original release, but to someone who doesn't have it it's like, "duhh...which one would you choose?"
Grease was assumed to have been coming closer to the formats inception last year- It was on the early leaked list iirc. At this point, I'm wondering if they just won't wait for 2008 and its 30th ann. The Paramount insider on another forum hasn't mentioned this one at all, while he has dropped info on things like the Jack Ryan series and Chinatown. I would be thrilled if they kick out Grease over the summer, but I'm not expecting it to happen
And I don't think their paltry HD releases are indicitive of anything more than their general apathy as far as home video in general. Their sd releases have become a big joke, with every announcement containing some inane repackaging of already long available content- all while dozens upon dozens of great films have still yet to see even an intial bare bones release. Paramount just sucks these days.
Sam: Molly, you're in danger. Oda Mae Brown: You can't just blurt it out like that! And quit moving around, because you're starting to make me dizzy. I'll just tell her in my own way. [pause; then, to Molly] Oda Mae Brown: Molly, you in danger girl.
I'm all over Ghost. The original dvd looked pretty good back in the day so I have reasonably high hopes for this on HD. Paramount hasn't put out very much but I will say that most of their titles do look rather good.
Would love Grease though. And Top Gun, Ferris Bueller, and many more. Paramount owned the 1980s so let's bring them on!
Not to sound like a broken record, but if this is another 640kbps Dolby Digital track, I'll pass. I'd definitely purchase this if it was lossless, but I'd rather spend my money on titles from Sony, Disney and Fox who are doing the audio right.
Certainly the sound is important, and while I would like to see lossless on all releases, it is just not the way it is. As it stands, the Dolby + on most of the HD DVD releases has been pretty damn good, and certainly, as a rule of thumb, a step above the SD DVD. So if it is title I want, I will buy it.
If it really is a must have for you, then you just made most Warner and Paramount/Dreamworks exclusive to HD.
Unfortunately, that's true. I remember in the earlier days of DVD we had the same arguments in regards to anamorphic releases. Many people said things like "anamorphic would be nice, but how many of us are even capable of displaying it?". It wasn't a deal-breaker for most people (example: Titanic). Even though I didn't have a 16:9 set until years later, I still tried to steer clear of non-anamorphic except on must-have titles. I try not to "double-dip" too often. Some studios like Sony did it on nearly every title (I think to date, Sony has released less than 5 non-anmorphic DVDs excluding academy ratio), while others like MGM and Criterion rarely bothered. If one of these optical formats does catch on, you can be sure that they'll be reissues down the road advertising "New Lossless Dolby TrueHD (or DTS-MA) Audio Track!". Luckily, the titles from Sony, Fox and Buena Vista are fairly future-proof. I know that with the exception of a lackluster transfer like Fifth Element, that I won't need to buy these titles again for the most part. Is there really going to be a reason to ever buy Casino Royale, The Departed or The Prestige again? Ghost may not seem like a title that will ever be re-issued lossless, yet they've redone numerous titles in 5.1 that were only 2.0 on their original releases on standard DVD. Time will tell.
I loved how in Naked Gun 2 1/2 they mocked the "famous love scene" from Ghost. Leslie Nielson is hilarious IMHO. Maybe Paramount will release the Naked Gun Series within the next year or so on BD & HD DVD.