Universal Reveals Early 'American Gangster' HD DVD Details

Issuing a rare "pre-announcement," Universal says it's planning a late winter HD DVD bow for Ridley Scott's 'American Gangster.'

Although the studio stopped short of issuing an exact street date for Denzel Washington-Russell Crowe starrer (which is still in theaters), it's promising an HD DVD/DVD Combo edition sometime in March, day-and-date with a matching standard DVD.

Tech specs will include a 1080p/VC-1 transfer, along with Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround and Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 Surround tracks.

Extras are already looking quite extensive, with audio commentary by Ridley Scott himself, the "Fallen Empire: The Making of American Gangster" documentary, "Uncovering the Past" featurette, deleted scenes and a U-Control-enabled picture-in-picture commentary. The HD DVD will also include web-enabled extras, which will be announced along with final details when the full press release arrives sometime in the next few weeks.

Universal has set a suggested list price of $39.98 for the HD DVD/DVD combo.

While we await a final street date and complete details for 'American Gangster,' we've added a listing for the title in the "Release Dates Pending" section of our HD DVD Release Schedule. Stay tuned!


HIGHDEFDIGEST.com

Enjoyed the film a lot in theatres, will be picking up the hd dvd.

They better keep the poster art for this. A steelbook would be great. Maybe two covers like the "Transformers" steelbook. One with the Denzel cover, one with the Crowe cover.

Hell. Yes. First week pickup for me.

Will definitely pick this up. Arguably Ridley Scott's best movie since Blade Runner. Oh yes, I said it.

Hopefully, I'll have a receiver to hear "Across 110th Street" in lossless glory by then.

Should make a great double bill with Black Rain.

i'm praying to god universal doesn't fuck up again and make the standard dvd a flipper disc. i don't think i can handle another casino ordeal.

A definite must buy for me! I expect a cool packaging and interesting extras.

i agree. one steelbook is enough though.
quick question. when you buy a hd combo disc, do both sides have the extras or just one side? better yet, do both sides have identical content besides the hd/sd difference?

Jasko: It depends on the disc. Usually, the extras are only on one side. Best thing you can do is wait on the specs and see where they end up.

I'm in for this one on HD DVD.

HD for me, although I hate these goddamn combo releases.

Dammit, +1 to needing an HD-DVD player.

Definite buy on HD-DVD for me!

http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releas...-gangster.html

A two disc set and a nearly 3 hour extended edition!

Awesome. Although the REAL Frank Lucas was NOTHING like what was portrayed in the movie I'll still by the movie. They made Nicky Barnes look like a clown in that movie. They have those characters mixed up. Nickey was a real intelligent street hustler.

Excellent! Ridley Scott really knows what DVD collectors want. Awesome movie - and awesome cover art too.

Just saw this in the theater this evening, definite buy on HD for me.

Partly because the darn theater messed up the projector or something, and the whole movie was shown in open matte I guess. I saw boom mikes every few minutes.

Contrary to this press release, expect this on Feb. 19th, the Tuesday before the Oscars....

Cool. Saw this in the theatre, thumbs up.

Extended version on HD? I'm in!

If they have the theatrical cut on the SD side, it'll at least make the combo somewhat worthwhile(kinda like Miami Vice).

DVD active now reports that they will also release a 3-disk Collector's Edition of this film as well as the 2-disk version. Very interested to see what will be on that bonus disk.

I hope they turn this into a 2-disc HD DVD.

Wow Ridley Scott seems to be releasing a lot of extended cuts to his films lately. It'll be interesting to see what the 20 minutes of additional footage looks like.

It looks like Uni's putting a "digital copy" of the film on disc 3, hopefully it's a little more than that otherwise I'll just have to plunk down for the 2-disc.

^YEah who gives a shit about a "digital copy" of the film. That to me makes no sense at all. It does look like the 3-disk will come with a nice little Photo Booklet though.
It will also be interesting to see if everything on the 3-disk DVD will be on a 2-Disk HD-DVD.

3-disc artwork is NICE, but I hate that border around the cover with the gigantic fonts. The cover should just be that poster, with "3 Disc Collector's Edition" written on it maybe at the top or bottom in a smaller, classier font. Or, at the very least, make that silver border much smaller and make the fonts used much smaller. Looks like a great package though, and if the price is right, I'll probably buy it even if the third disc is nothing more than a digital copy or whatever.