From Video Business:

With The Passion of the Christ finally appearing to end its phenomenal run as the first of the summer tentpoles hit U.S. theaters last weekend, Fox and Mel Gibson's Icon Prods. have finally officially confirmed a late August release date for the DVD version (VB, 4-21).

Fox plans an Aug. 31 (prebook Aug. 4) release date, just three weeks prior to the studio's first DVD release of the Star Wars Trilogy on Sept. 21, which could give Fox two of the biggest releases of the year less than a monthm apart.

With the R-rated Passion generating nearly $370 million in the U.S.
alone to rank among the Top 10 moneymakers of all time, industry observers believe at least 15 million DVD copies could be sold domestically and come close to doubling the box-office gross.

Fox is targeting the church market hard, setting up bulk ordering at a special Web site where customized "church sleeves" and other church-oriented marketing and promotional materials can be downloaded.

The studio's sister News Corp. international Christian communications company Zondervan will handle distribution to retailer members of the Christian Booksellers Association.

Coming as somewhat of a surprise, the Aug. 31 edition of the two-hour Passion will be a single-disc release with few if any bonus features and tagged with a retail price of $29.98. A spokesman for Fox said every effort was made to use the maximum digital bit rate during the transfer to present the movie with the highest quality picture and audio, including sound in 5.1 Dolby Digital and 5.1 DTS, optional widescreen or pan-and-scan and English or Spanish subtitles on the film, in which all the dialog is either in Aramaic or Latin.

Although the studio would not comment, it is believed that a follow-up special edition is being planned for a potential release at Christmas or
Easter.

There has also been discussion about a theatrical rerelease of the film. International DVD release plans are still being determined.

I imagine after Gibson dies and is canonized, August 31 will be henceforth known as "Saint Mel's Day."

i guess they're really trying so hard to milk this sucker dry

Yes on DTS.

Boo on minimal features and fullscreen.

The fullscreen, no-DTS, and not so many features was what ruined the FvsJ DVD for me.

Quote:

Originally posted by Mao
Although the studio would not comment, it is believed that a follow-up special edition is being planned for a potential release at Christmas or Easter.

I agree with BlackBeauty92. Why don't they just wait the extra three months and release the SE during the X-Mas season? While i'm glad the studio is at least announcing their intentions, this smacks of greed..

but, what did I really expect from a film that merchandised necklaces with replica SPIKES dangling off of 'em...

Was there this much complaining when LOTR did the same thing?

the thing is, i can't believe that they're trying to milk in on "church people"

this is a movie about Christ & they still treat it as a merchandise...
talk about respect

i dunno, maybe i'm hoping too much or maybe being too sensitive

Widescreen is optional. Is it just the extra space on the disc that fullscreen takes up that bothers you?
I thought Peter Jackson was much clearer on his plans.

I want burned-in subs. I HATE (really hate) player-generated ones. Yes, I know they are necessary sometimes and I know some of them "look really nice" or whatever, but still, when I saw the movie theatrically, it had subs and I want the SAME ONES on the DVD. I do not want player-generated ones. The dialog in this film is very important (though not very plentiful), they should be burned in in my opinion to gurantee no errors...

I'm glad to be able to have the movie early. Not interested in an SE, so widescreen & DTS will do nicely for me. Too bad the pan & scan version is taking up disk space, but what can you do?

I disagree, I want to be able to choose the option of not seeing them, to see the film as Mel Gibson had originally intended. I really want to see the movie as a visual thing, because the dialogue, I thought, was generally not very good, occassionally didn't make sense/didn't match what was going on, and, at best, was just verbatim from the Bible anyway and, thus, I could always check to see what was being said if I really wanted to know. Or I could just flip on the *optional* subtitles.

Yes, no question, this is the only feature on this DVD that sounds good to me, these not burned-in subtitles.

I'm very disappointed with the lack of extras. I was hoping a 2 or 3 disc Special Edition with a commentary track, featurette, deleted scenes, ect. I'm guessing they are going to make another release in '05 to "milk it" as stated earlier.

They announced their intentions? According to that article they refused to comment about a special edition.

Hopefully well get some kind of confirmation on a date for the SE before the initial barebones release so we can decide whether or not to get the barebones

Well, I can see the argument for player-generated subs. I guess to be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing it without subs since that is what he originally wanted. If that is the case though, I want them to re-insert the scenes (OK, not scenes, but subs) he cut not because he wanted to necessarily, but because of politcal correctness. Still, generally, I HATE player generated subtitles.

While I’d prefer if the subs were burnt in, I can understand the logic behind player generated subs. This way it’s easier to port into different languages all around the world.

Hopefully they’ll include subs that were censored.

I will definately be purchasing this DVD eventually, but will wait until the SE if it does come to fruition.

It will be a blind buy for me, and I am really looking forward to it!

pass

Quote:

Originally posted by William Fuld
They announced their intentions? According to that article they refused to comment about a special edition.

Yes, they announced that there would be a forthcoming SE. Not necessarily what would be on it...just that there would be one.

Oh well, I guess we'll get the wacky outtakes of Gibson clowning around on the set later (doing his Curly impressions, etc).

how about an outtake of Jim Caviezel getting struck by lightning?

...as if that actually happened.

Where did they make this announcement? This release says it's believed a special edition is forthcoming, but the studio wouldn't comment. That's not much of an annoucement.

...you are joking, yes?... (I read where good old Mel stands to make - at least! - 100Million cool American Dollars
off the movie - and off the tasteful TPOTC mugs - and off the equally tasteful TPOTC "Passion Nail" pendants on leather thongs and whatnot)

. . . . . .

I thought that did happen...was I a victim of a rumor?

I stand uncorrected-here's a link:

Caviezel struck by lightning at CNN.com