Grubert

George Feltenstein of Warner Home Video talks about future releases and why it takes so long to bring Golden Age gems to Blu-ray:

Link

An excerpt:

Some titles and the restoration/remastering required are also discussed. However, I was shocked to see Citizen Kane won't come out until 2011 (70th Anniversary edition, I guess).

Cosmic Bus

This isn't surprising, since the US market seemingly lives and dies by whatever is newest, flashy and exciting. People just want whatever was in the multiplex a two months ago, no matter how terrible it was, as long as they can show off their big TV to friends. I have to shake my head whenever I see someone mention that they won't buy anything but Blu-ray now -- there's so, so, so much more to film than a gleaming, high-definition transfer. At least UK and French distribs are doing a better job at releasing older and classic movies. Now we only need to do something about region-coding once and for all.

Also, High Def Digest could use a refresher course in grammar:

Walker Boh

That's awesome ... I just watched North by Northwest on DVD again yesterday, and was thinking it would be nice to have on Blu-ray. I hope they do it justice.

B5Erik

I'll definitely buy several classic titles if they put them out on Blu Ray.

islandclaws

Very good read. Nice to know there are some executives out there who actually care about quality. I'd love to see more pre-80's films released on BD, and the studios aren't pumping them out at the rate I'd like.

Gizmo

Well that does not explain the DNR/EE added to releases to several mono tracks getting the lossless treatment (Being There)

PopcornTreeCt

Yep, this is what happens when the most popular blu-ray player is a video game console.

Giles

but they haven't even ported over the HD-DVD titles onto bluray:

Mutiny on the Bounty
Grand Prix
Forbidden Planet

come on...

Mr. Cinema

Because HD DVD owners didn't buy those titles. I can see why they're slow to release them on BD.

Gizmo

I don't have dates, but those were released within the first year of HD DVDs life, right? How many potential customers were there compared to the 10 Million (counting PS3 obviously) on Blu-ray right now? Warner should have no problems locating a few BD25 discs to toss these on.

E Unit

Just curious, but how many years did HD DVD exist to where we could buy them? But I don't get it either how Grand Prix hit HD yet they don't release it on BD. Can't they just use the same transfer?

Giles

you'd think, considering that the Grand Prix HD-DVD edition got high marks/reviews.

Gizmo

April 2006 - June 2008.

E Unit

Okay, so i guess I got Grand Prix about a year into HD DVD sales. Damn was their life and death a quick one. Doesn't seem that long ago we were all hot and bothered over the format war. I guess this is a good way to keep HD DVD cycling for a while, by not releasing what's already been released in the HD DVD format.

seymouru

I'm surprised Forbidden Planet didn't sell well on HD-DVD. You'd think it would be a no brainer, at least for genre buffs/early adopters/techie types (i.e., DVD Talkers). I guess there aren't enough of us to make a dent in sales. (P.S. I've already broken an antenna off my mini-Robby )

Here's how it reads now:Looks like someone from High Def Digest is reading this thread.

Breakfast with Girls

The Forbidden Planet collector's tin sold in the low hundreds, didn't it? (I bought one! ) It's no surprise that studios are proceeding cautiously. Frankly, it's fine for me—I don't even have time to watch the films I buy as it is. If they started releasing a lot of classic films I would fall even further behind.

DthRdrX

I thinking they sold around 400-500 of them.

DthRdrX

Found this over on the BR forum. Looks like these will be the films WB pushes next Holiday season.

Gizmo

Pretty sure that's old information. The only new thing I see is Heat (and it may have already been announced).

Gizmo

At one point David Vaughn posted some sales figures...and some of the "classic" Warner HD DVD exclusives sold really bad. Stuff like Forbidden Planet didn't sell a thousand copies in a year! Casablanca was a bit better then that...but I can see why Warner would rather release Steven Segal crap that would appeal to the current BD Demographic. I remember when Wolf Creek sold only a couple hundred copies...and I bought one.

Cosmic Bus

Kind of reminds me of the Sega Dreamcast: there were some fantastic games that only managed to sell 100-200 copies total, a fair number of which probably to importers like myself.

B5Erik

I think that classic films may see a lag time in reaching decent sales figures simply because the older people that are responsible for a significant percentage of those titles' overall sales numbers may be adopting Blu Ray more slowly. A lot of them think DVD is still kind of new(ish) and aren't ready to make yet another switch.

Give them another year or two and some more significant price decreases and many of them will get on board with Blu Ray and buy those classic titles. As it is now the big name classic titles should sell fairly well, but a title like Forbidden Planet won't see decent sales until 2010 or 2011.

Daytripper

Don't count on it and I wouldn't get too excited. It is WB we're talking about here.

B5Erik

Hmmm...

The fact that it IS WB that we're talking about is what makes me get excited. They have done a consistently great job with their classic releases over the last 7 or 8 years.

Gizmo

Yeah, and expect to pay $60 for it since it just in a box shaped like an Airplane with some postcards, stick of gum and compass.