"President and CEO of Time Warner Inc, Jeff Bewkes, commented that his studio would release fewer theatrical film and begin to focus more on building wider consumer adoption of Blu-ray. While the movie studio has seen success, the profits being generated by its home media arm have trumped all box office take.

Warner Brothers is already a leader in Blu-ray releases, has released more classic films than any other studio. Their increased support of Blu-ray should hopefully not only increase the number of quality Blu-ray titles on the market, but also decrease the number of theatrical bombs (and their eventual Blu-ray releases) from tainting movie-goers minds."

www.blu-ray.com

Here's the full article:

Jeff Bewkes, president and CEO of Time Warner Inc., June 9 said Warner Bros. Studios by 2009 will bow half the number of films in its theatrical slate from two years ago.

Speaking to investors at the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecommunications Conference in New York, Bewkes said pressure to improve revenue and cash flow growth from its $1 billion filmed-entertainment division meant taking a step back and making more out of less.

“Our motivation is to improve our return on capital,” Bewkes said. “Doing that we believe we can move profit up.”

To accomplish this, the CEO said the studio will focus on building wider consumer adoption of Blu-ray, expanding cable video-on-demand simultaneously with standard DVD (Bewkes said cable VOD generated more than three times the margins of DVD rental) and other electronic distribution.

Bewkes said the elimination of New Line Pictures, which he characterized as a redundant infrastructure, would result in ongoing overhead improvements as well.

He said DVD has been a reliable revenue generator for all studios the past five years. Bewkes said that for every $100 in box office revenue, Warner Home Video extracted more from DVD.

“Our studio still leads in that area because we have scale superiority in worldwide DVD distribution,” the CEO said.

Bewkes said expansion of Blu-ray, VOD and related improvements in electronic distribution by moving away from physical DVD would help grow filmed entertainment.

“Those kinds of things we think in the long run will bring revenue growth to the total film sector,” he said.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/new...ticle_id=12904

That might be the most bizarre commentary I've ever seen. Yeah, Warner, stop tainting Blu-Ray with your silly theatrical bombs!

now let's smack some sense into Fox.

Considering how badly Warner has been hit this year (dissolving New Line, Picturehouse, and Warner Independent as well as Speed Racer) this isn't much of a surprise.

Hopefully we get some kickass discs out of them, though.

uh, yeah.... Ken Russell's 'The Devils'

And recent bombs like Poseidon and The Invasion didn't help either.

Speed Racer is an instant success!

I interpret his quotes as meaning BD will be the next standard disc format and VOD will take over as the prime rental service. Works for me.

Maybe they should focus on putting TrueHD tracks instead of Dolby Digital 5.1 on their now Blu-ray exclusive releases. Seriously Warner, WTF?

they should also get around to releasing some the prior HD-DVD only releases and put them on bluray

- Grand Prix
- Robin Hood
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Mutiny on the Bounty

Maybe they can stop releasing movies like "One Missed Call."

Sucks that they dissolved all those studios, though I suppose it technically doesn't matter.

One Missed Call made them money.

God bless Jeff Bewkes!

And Forbidden Planet.

Whether or not you like the movie, Speed Racer will look incredible on Blu-ray. That point should be pretty obvious.

I hope this means they release stuff that previously went to Warner Independent directly onto Blu-ray. Premiere something in NY and LA, then have it on Blu-ray and VOD a week later.

So the old saying is not true? You can polish a turd?

So does this mean they'll compromise their SDdvd releases with inferior picture quality and less extras just to make their Blu-ray counterparts seem that much better? Kinda like they did with the last Harry Potter film.

It is pretty obvious that SDVD isn't the margin-provider the big studios desire. That is why I pointed earlier last week that this Winter the switch towards BR hadrware only should become obvious. It will be up to the BDA to coordinate the phasing of SDVD software with the rest of the big studios as well. So, Bewkes' statement is right on target.

Pro-B

Must have missed that memo. I GUARANTEE you that there will be no such switch over this winter. NO CHANCE.

Must be missing something but isn't Blu-ray another version of "physical" media just like DVD?

His first bolded comment was stating cable VOD generated 3 times the margins of DVD rental. His second bolded statement mentioned moving away from DVD. I took those 2 statements as another way of saying BD will be the new physical format we push and VOD will complement and be the new representative of the rental market.

Exactly. As of now, absolutely no more Warner SD purchases for me, no matter how obscure.

except maybe that Gangsters 4 set... after all, it has Larceny Inc.

You are wrong my child. Sony executives have been saying for a long time that the time of change has come. The fruit has ripened.

It seems odd about making less movies and focusing on Blu-ray. I guess they just want to be ready for winter when the change comes.