From The Hollywood Reporter:

All 20 Bond pics on MGM gift list:

MGM Home Entertainment is releasing all 20 of the James Bond films together in three special-edition gift sets Nov. 18. Volume 1, which includes seven titles, was released in October and will be repromoted and released together with Volumes 2 and 3 in November. The gift sets are priced at $124.96 each (preorder Oct. 21), and each title gets the full features treatment, including commentaries, documentaries and various featurettes, music videos, TV and radio sports, theatrical trailers, storyboards and other material. MGM said all Bond titles, except "Die Another Day," are scheduled to go into moratorium Jan. 19 for an indefinite period. Originally, MGM had planned to come out with only Volume 2 this year, but the response to Volume 1 prompted the creation of a major Bond package for this holiday season, according to the company

Great news. I bought Set #1 last October & DAD when it came out. I guess someone will be getting DAD for Christmas this year since it will apparently be in set #2 or #3. It would've been nice if they'd done one earlier (when DAD came out). Of course this way they get to sell double the DADs. I hate buying the same dvd just months apart but that's what I'll be doing.

Thanks for the release date. Looks like I will be getting these for Christmas. If you are curious as to what special features will be on each dvd, check out the link below.

http://www.jamesbond.com/dvd-vhs/us/

Glad I waited to get DAD, I bought Volume 1 last December, guess I'll be picking up the next 2 in November to complete my Bond collection.

Looks like they're shoving all of these discs out of the door so they can put them on moratorium in preparation for the forthcoming remastered SEs...

DJ

THAT'S what I was just going to ask about...

I'll wait for the SEs...

Thanks djtoell.

It's about ****ing time.

Thankfully, I was able to buy all of these the first time they were released. It sucks all the people that got into DVD later had to wait this long to get the Bond DVDs.

So they are going to redo all of the bond movies AGAIN after these box sets?

I sitll have the first ones, no need to upgrade(the SEs I guess, the last box sets)

Yup. Mi Casa Studios (who do a lot of DVD audio remixes) have been saying for a while that they're working on 5.1 remixes for early Bond films. See, for example, the introduction to this interview from December of last year:

Word has had it that MGM will be providing DD and DTS 5.1 tracks for all of the films. Someone else would probably know this better than I, but I believe they've also done (or are in the process of doing) new high-definition masters for the films that need them. I'm no psychic, but if the current SEs are going on moratorium at the start of 2004, I wouldn't expect the new releases until late that year or probably early 2005. I guess that'll give me about 4-5 years of total time to enjoy their 19 Bond discs, which I guess ain't so bad, really. Of course, that's because I bought the discs back in 2000. If I didn't own the discs already, I'd probably pass on this November re-release.

DJ

what, is George Lucas in charge of the bond franchise? Sheesh. I don't know why they were pulled in the first place. I bought them all through various deals (volume 3 for $45), and all the others from CH for next to nothing. I hocked them all on half.com right before christmas and made around $500.

I mean the ones coming out are identical to the ones already released. It doesn't make sense.

Wow.

We all better start saving for November. I have at least 400 dollars worth of stuff to get over a 3 week period and that's just off the top of my head.

I managed to get all of the original sets, and the only advantage to redoing them yet again would be for the Dolby 5.1 tracks on the older momo titles (which if they did that, I'd but only those titles again).

I doubt the 5.1 will happen for they know us collecters will buy in DD monaural. Thay are cheap and getting cheaper, not to upgrade the Dr. No and others that are in need of at least stereo sound. IMHO

It already has...

DJ

I remember these discs being considered really good for their time, but hey, that was a couple of years ago, right? It's funny to see someone refer to "Special Editions" of these coming out later, when these were really considered cool special editions when they came out.

The only gripe I remember about these when they came out was that Dr. No and From Russia With Love (and maybe Goldfinger, maybe some others) weren't in their original aspect ratio, as they were modified to fit the 16:9 anamorphic widescreen.

Will the titles be available individually? The only ones I'm missing are Live and Let Die and OHMSS.

Yeah. I'm only missing 4 titles myself. Any info?

I would be verry suprised if they weren't. I am also only missing a few titles.

So for a fact, DAD will be in Volume #2 and not just an open space for it like they did back in the day with TWINE?

Man, MGM is really pushing these sets. I read the announcement here yesterday, and I've already heard about these releases on the radio, on the news, and I think there was an artical on MSN.com or something.

Anyways, the basic jist of all the reports was:

"We have very exciting news! MGM has decided to release all the Bond movies on DVD this Christmas! Volume 1 was released last year and they were only going to release vol. 2, but they said fan support for the first volume convinced them to release all of them. WOW. THIS IS AMAZING! ALL THE BOND MOVIES ON DVD!...etc"

They make no mention of the fact that these are the same old DVDs from 3(?) years ago (of course there is also no mention of the re-mastering being done) or the fact that they were taken OOP just so they could re-release them when DAD came out. They make it seem like MGM put the fans first and sped up production on these brand new DVDs in order to get these out, because ever since DVD debuted 6 or so years ago, people have been waiting for 007! What is this, the 3rd re-release for these?

It doesn't bother me that they're still the same old discs (most of them are fine), but what does bother me is that they're going all Disney on us with them constantly going in and out of print and making it seem like they're doing us a favor every time they're released. Just release the damn things, and leave them on the market until you have something new for us. I know why they do this, but that doesn't stop it from really pissing me off.

-RANT OVER-

are they gonna change the cover of dad to make it match the sets?

Several titles were originally released as bare boned DVDs in the early days of DVD (96 or 97). Then following the sucess of the remasted SE of Tomorrow Never Dies, MGM decided to make Bond SE's (among their first SEs released ) in 1999 in 3 waves. Those discs were expensive $35.99 MSRP. Then in 2002, prior to the theatrical release of DAD, seven of those titles were rerelaesed at a much lower MSRP ($19.99, I think).

Now, I understand that the titles will be revisited again, remixed and remastered. We'll see. Just because a title was impressive when it came out, doesn't mean it can't be improved on (hense Fox's "Alien Quadrilogy").

So anyway, yes these titles are SEs, but no, they aren't the NEW SE's that some people are waiting for.

edit: I was replying to a question that was since deleted. Still, this is what they were asking about : Aren't the Bond films already SEs.

Thanks Decker for the information. I deleted the post, I guess around the same time you were replying because I found out the information from another website Guess I can hold off until 2005 when the Special Editions are rumored to be released. Again, thanks for clarifying...