Bryan Beckman
Second Unit
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2005
- Messages
- 272
I don't want to be overly rancorous in addressing this, but the lamentable trend of Warner Bros. giving certain Blu-ray releases lossy DD5.1 audio instead of the lossless treatment continues to disappoint me. We've already gone through this with "Speed Racer", which either (a) didn't make enough money at the box office to "deserve" lossless audio, or (b) doesn't need lossless audio because it's a "kids movie," whatever that inexplicable logic means. (It reminds me of Disney's marketing MAR-ed live-action releases as being presented in "family friendly widescreen," as if thick black bars was a leading cause for broken homes in this country.)
So now we have another announced release from Warners, "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl," with Abigail Breslin, Stanley Tucci, et al. I never got around to seeing it in theaters, but it did pretty well with critics (79% on RT), and it looks like a nice rental. It had fairly modest box office, about $17M, but with a reported budget of only $10M, this is hardly the financial catastrophe for WB that "Speed Racer" was.
Well, you can probably guess what's coming next . . . here's the back cover art for the Blu-ray release of "Kit Kittredge":
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
No extras (granted, there may not have been the budget to produce any), and lossy DD5.1 audio. This is not exactly an unprofitable movie for Warners (at least, after DVD sales/rentals, it won't be), so what's going on? Is lossless audio somehow not "family friendly"? What decision rubric is being applied here? Apparently blockbuster family hits like "Harry Potter" get lossless. But something like "Iron Giant," if and when it comes to Blu-ray, probably won't.
I just don't get it.
So now we have another announced release from Warners, "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl," with Abigail Breslin, Stanley Tucci, et al. I never got around to seeing it in theaters, but it did pretty well with critics (79% on RT), and it looks like a nice rental. It had fairly modest box office, about $17M, but with a reported budget of only $10M, this is hardly the financial catastrophe for WB that "Speed Racer" was.
Well, you can probably guess what's coming next . . . here's the back cover art for the Blu-ray release of "Kit Kittredge":
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
No extras (granted, there may not have been the budget to produce any), and lossy DD5.1 audio. This is not exactly an unprofitable movie for Warners (at least, after DVD sales/rentals, it won't be), so what's going on? Is lossless audio somehow not "family friendly"? What decision rubric is being applied here? Apparently blockbuster family hits like "Harry Potter" get lossless. But something like "Iron Giant," if and when it comes to Blu-ray, probably won't.
I just don't get it.