What Major Catalog Titles Await a Blu-ray Release?

[BuckNaked2k]

I was thinking about this the other day as '11 passed to '12.

Obviously, there are hundreds of catalog titles which have not yet made it to Blu-ray, but IMHO, there are a scant few major cultural touchstones which have yet to be released/announced. Here's my list:

Indiana Jones Trilogy
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
Titanic
Lawrence of Arabia
Finding Nemo

What other titles would you add to this list?

Edit: yes, yes, SW OOT notwithsanding.....

[Disc-Flipper]

Aladdin
The Little Mermaid
Mary Poppins
The Muppet Movie
Suspiria
Jesus Christ Superstar
Evita - June 19th, 2012
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Spirited Away
Phantasm
Friday the 13th 4-X

[MrStayPuft]

Schindler's List
Broken Flowers
Garden State

[NoirFan]

Originally Posted by Disc-Flipper

Suspiria

There is a UK release however. Singing in the Rain is a biggie, though it's supposed to be on the way. Rebel Without a Cause and Nashville are the other two American all-timers that come to mind.

[davidh777]

Sunset Boulevard
On the Waterfront
High Noon
Rear Window
Vertigo
Top Hat

(Was just beaten out for Singin' in the Rain)

[joltman]

These might not all exactly fall under 'major', but I was just looking at my DVD collection and there are the ones I'm surprised haven't been released on Blu yet:
Night of the Living Dead
Ace Ventura
Catch Me If You Can
Curious George
Universal Horror (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc)
The Land Before Time
Lilo & Stitch (this one really annoys me since they should have released the Blu at the same time as it's last DVD release)
The Ring
Vanilla Sky

And here's the more cult-movies that I am surprised haven't been released yet:
Frankenstein and Dracula Hammer films
Re-Animator
Ginger Snaps
Phantasm
Sleepaway Camp

EDIT: Can't belive I forgot NOTLD

[Pizza]

Way too many.

I would love to see the Universal horror films.

[NoirFan]

Originally Posted by joltman

Night of the Living Dead

The Forgotten Films release looks quite good, but it's missing approximately 30 seconds of footage. There are also Japanese, French and Italian versions, though none are definitive. All of them are discussed here.

Originally Posted by Pizza

I would love to see the Universal horror films.

Which are strongly rumored to be arriving via box set in October.

[Timber]

Rad god damnit.

[NoirFan]

Okay, this is swiftly devolving into this pre-existing thread.

[rexinnih]

Originally Posted by NoirFan

Okay, this is swiftly devolving into this pre-existing thread.

But, but (insert obscure movie title here) is a major catalog title awaiting a Blu-ray release

[BuckNaked2k]

Originally Posted by rexinnih

But, but (insert obscure movie title here) is a major catalog title awaiting a Blu-ray release

Yea, I guess my definition of "major cultural touchstones" doesn't include movies with muppets or machete-wielding hockey goalies.

I was looking for the few remaining titles which are cinematically important, and will make a major splash in sales during release week and thereafter. IMHO, almost all of these have been released. In addition to my short list, there may be a few more, some of which were mentioned subsequently.

[joltman]

Originally Posted by NoirFan

The Forgotten Films release looks quite good, but it's missing approximately 30 seconds of footage. There are also Japanese, French and Italian versions, though none are definitive. All of them are discussed here.

Yea, I know all about the various releases. I'm just waiting for a solid USA release, although I would gladly get the Japanese Happinet version if I didn't need to pay and arm and a leg.

[PopcornTreeCt]

Significant films...

The Apartment
Double Indemnity
City Lights
Chinatown
The Gold Rush
Mulholland Drive
The Philadelphia Story
Shane
The Sweet Hereafter

I think Warner has more of a responsibility to Blu-ray than all other studios because of their vast library of films. In addition to the ones named we're still waiting on a James Dean collection (to which I would likely pre-order) and a number of Bogart, Grant, Hepburn, Hitchcock and Cagney flicks. Criterion, who has been better than any other studio at catalog releases, has disappointed me with their hesitation on Chaplin films. Maybe they're trying to spread them all out but I like to think Chaplin would be considered a strong priority but that does not appear to be the case.

[dvd-4-life]

The remaining Bond films.

If all the major catalog movies were released on blu-ray in the near future,wouldn't future blu-ray sales go in the toilet because Hollywood hit a 15 yr low in ticket sales(not much of a demand for new release movies)?

[NoirFan]

Originally Posted by PopcornTreeCt

Double Indemnity

This was among the titles included in the Universal 2012 slate posted on the Criterion Forum.

[Paul_SD]

Originally Posted by PopcornTreeCt

Significant films...

The Sweet Hereafter

This may be getting a Canadian release from Alliance. Good news if true as it would likely be quite a while waiting for Warner to do anything with it.

Others that I haven't seen mentioned

The Great Escape
Swing Time
It Happened One Night
Imitation Of Life, Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows
Mister Roberts
The Posideon Adventure
The Hammer Horror film ( Though I prefer the ones controlled by Universal to Warners)
Gilda
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers
The Band Wagon
Badlands
Seven Year Itch, Bus Stop, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, etc
The Accidental Tourist
Jean de Florette/ Manon des Sources
The Year Of Living Dangerously
The Mosquito Coast
All That Jazz
The Black Hole
The Greatest Show On Earth

and many many more

[PopcornTreeCt]

I think there was word that Criterion would be releasing Badlands. I hope that turns out to be true. I'd love to see them do Jean de Florette/Manon as well.

[davidh777]

Originally Posted by PopcornTreeCt

Significant films...

The Apartment
Double Indemnity
City Lights
Chinatown
The Gold Rush
Mulholland Drive
The Philadelphia Story
Shane
The Sweet Hereafter

I think Warner has more of a responsibility to Blu-ray than all other studios because of their vast library of films. In addition to the ones named we're still waiting on a James Dean collection (to which I would likely pre-order) and a number of Bogart, Grant, Hepburn, Hitchcock and Cagney flicks. Criterion, who has been better than any other studio at catalog releases, has disappointed me with their hesitation on Chaplin films. Maybe they're trying to spread them all out but I like to think Chaplin would be considered a strong priority but that does not appear to be the case.

True on Warner but I do think they've made a good effort on catalog--better than Universal or Paramount. The Deans would be significant, and a number of others like The Philadelphia Story, but they have done a number of Bogarts. I could see Yankee Doodle Dandy having some success but I would think other Cagneys would be low priority.

[Superdaddy]

Originally Posted by davidh777

True on Warner but I do think they've made a good effort on catalog--better than Universal or Paramount. The Deans would be significant, and a number of others like The Philadelphia Story, but they have done a number of Bogarts. I could see Yankee Doodle Dandy having some success but I would think other Cagneys would be low priority.

I have mixed feelings about Warner. On the one hand, I love their relatively aggressive stance on catalog titles. Feltenstein admits that quite a few don't do big business but they keep releasing them. All well and good and I give them big props for that.

On the other hand, their allergy to licensing out their films is annoying. The persistent rumor that Criterion will release Badlands is an example. It's frustrating that we don't have all of Malick on BD. He doesn't have a huge filmography; this is the only feature of his that isn't on the format. He has a fan base that want it. If Warner doesn't see it as financially viable to release it themselves, then they should license it out. I doubt it's making any money of significance sitting in the vault, or on the ancient DVD release.

If Warner would license out some titles, when maintaining release of the ones they feel will make a decent return on their own label, Warner would be the force to reckon with as far as catalog releasing goes. Sony, for example, seems to have gone the opposite route. Their own catalog releases have slowed, but they are licensing stuff pretty aggressively.

I was actually thinking about Yankee Doodle Dandy the other day when going through my DVDs. When I came to that one, I figured this was a classic they'd probably get to eventually. But there are so many other films from that era that, as you mention, are probably not near the table for BD release.

[d2cheer]

Michael Mann's Thief.
Death Wish
Ordinary People
Chinatown


I would consider them major titles anyway as they were pretty significant for their times.

[Mike86]

It does seem pretty odd that there's not a US release of Night of the Living Dead yet seeing as how just about every other Dead-related sequel is out.

I think part of it is the studios are taking their time on releasing big titles and not putting them all out at once on Blu-ray. That way they still have some titles they can throw at consumers instead of making money all at one time off of certain titles (especially the bigger titles like more Speilberg, Hitchcock, Bond titles, etc).

[Iron_Giant]

Indiana Jones Trilogy
Any Disney Classic: Aladdin, The Little Mermaid... (LOVE Beauty and the Beast, Lion King 3D)
Finding Nemo (I do not have Monsters Inc or A Bugs Life, I did pick these up to complete my BR Pixar collection)
Schindler's List

Rest of Hitchcock Movies (North by Northwest way better on BR)

Any Movie with Jimmy Stewart in it (one of all time fav actors and B&W look AWESOME in BR!)



I know these movies will come out some time down the road, but in the mean time I will have to enjoy the Classics that have already come out on BR.

BR really breathes new life into the older movies, it really is like wacthing them for the 1st time. "White Christmas" is one that comes to mind, BR showed Bings Crosby's eyes as a bright blue, DVD his eyes were "no color" (or black) - Amazing.

I know I do not have everything I want yet, but my want list is getting smaller as each year goes by.

[Mr. Cinema]

There's no Hammer thread started, so I'll post here. Someone on blu-ray.com mentioned recently that Hammer has said they will announce who their US distributor will be for their Blu-ray titles once all contracts are finalized. However, no timetable yet. WB handled many of the major releases, so I'd assume they'd be in contention. But at least this shows we may finally get some Hammer titles in the US, hopefully this year. I would love to get a set similar to what WB released on DVD many years ago.

The Hammer website says they are planning to restore 30 films and they were looking for some lost footage for some of their films. They had this recent post regarding "The Curse of Frankenstein":

This week we reviewed the raw 4k scan of THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, in addition to a D3 tape from the BBC of their legacy broadcast version of the title. As we tweeted yesterday, sadly the raw 4k scan does not include either the Close-Up of the eyeball or any additional footage from the acid bath scene, however the D3 does contain the CU of the eyeball. Although the results may not prove successful, we are going to perform a test on upscaling the D3 footage to HD in order to see how it integrates into the 2k restoration from the 4k scan. We’ll let you know how we get on!

[Guru Askew]

I'm big on owning the complete filmography of a director which is a lot harder/rarer than it was on Blu than it was in the DVD days.

There are a log of huge names like Spielberg, Scorsese, the Coens, Coppola and Woody Allen that have substantial chunks of their filmographies unavailable on Blu. Fincher, Aronofsky and Nolan are very close. Kubrick and Burton will see their filmographies completed on Blu this year. Cameron's should be completed next year.

Kurosawa and Hitchcock have some high-profile releases still unavailable and the vast majority of Leone fans would consider their collection complete with "Duck You Sucker".