In the past, WB has gone into full scale production as early as six months before the titles were shipped to retail. NL Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story, as well as various other titles, sat in warehouses for some time waiting for WB to decide on release dates.

It wouldn't surprise me that they are working on Spring releases already.

Gee, I wonder how much brainstorming they had to do to decide to release those shortly before Christmas.

Pretty Strange huh?

If you remember back to last year, holiday time, Warner was announcing a lot of street dates like two-three weeks before hand. Who knows what was really going on. Maybe they were being cautious of the Hd market at that time.

Sorry, I don't get your meaning....yeah, Paramount pulled titles already finished due to money as I mentioned in my post but it's known that WB was already courted by money and decided to stay dual...so I doubt money would be a contributing factor for them at this point. It'll be a more well-reasoned business decision which would result in a more diplomatic move to exclusivity...i.e. they announce the last HD-DVD or Blu-Ray title well ahead of it's actual street date. My two cents anyway.

Ummm...what is this in response to? Certainly not anything I said in this thread.

ehh, it was a page back, #171....no worries, I think you were just clarifying that completed titles were pulled

Yeah, that's all I was saying.

Are we even sure about that? Not one copy has ever surfaced and been verified (besides one guy on AVS who claimed to have 3 yet no one else ever saw them).

They would have to Giz. There's no way they could have made stores by release day if they were not completed at the time of the announcement.

COMPLETED and "COMPLETED" is two different things. Was the movie ready to be pressed? Yes. Was it ever pressed? I don't think so. Most stores get movies in 1-3 weeks in advance, and for this movie, not a single store got the HD or BR version of it. It was not 'leaked' early like some movies at FYE, Wal-Mart etc. which leads me to believe this movie was never pressed. Not a single reviewer got a copy, not a single store etc.

I don't think the Paramount deal was over night. I believe it was being worked on for several weeks, hence Blades not coming out at all (Disturbia the week before was the last Paramount title IIRC)

This is 100% completely wrong. Most stores get the movies 1 day to the morning of release for the movie. Some smaller dvd releases may show up about a week early, but all bigger releases are never 1-3 weeks out.

You are 100% incorrect. As someone who has managed a Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and has worked for Best Buy and the such, movie titles can come in anywhere from 1 day before to 3 weeks ahead of street dates. Most of the time it is 1 week, but rarely is it ever the day before because just in case their is a shipping issue that store won't be without the hot selling movie.

If this was not true, please tell me how there are always several people who get next weeks "hot" movies 1 week in advance thanks to a stupid FYE, WalMart, Suncoast etc. Too many times had I snatched an early DVD release thanks to this method.

I'm confused. If Gizmo is 100% completely wrong, and Cusm is 100% incorrect, what are we to believe?

and here I was, about to throw in my own theory that roughly equates to 50% wrong, 30% right and 100% sarcastic BS....I'm glad I stopped myself before things got any more confusing..

A bit more on the origin and meaning of "FUD":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_u...inty_and_doubt

GizmoDVD is right, stores (online and b&m) get their DVDs well ahead of release date, at least 1-2 weeks before
(though they usually wait for the release date before shipping them).
I've been buying DVDs now for 9 years and they often ship a week before relase date.
In my case my pre-ordered copy of the "The Jack Ryan Collection" (HD DVD) was shipped 7 days in advance.

warrior

This is true. I use to get my pre-orders from DeepDiscountDVD (at the time) a few days prior to the release date. That was before the Harry Potter ordeal.

Has it ever been proven that Paramount took a payout? WB could dump either format just as fast as Paramount did. This is BUSINESS, not diplomacy.

Nope. In the small grocery store I worked in years ago, we'd get movies in weeks in advance. Pluse, even if, say, Best Buy stores get the discs two days before, they will have been in the processing chain for weeks. Blades of Glory was likely never pressed for BD. There would be SOME out there, in the middle of the distribution chain.

I guess the years I worked at Best Buy and all the major studio releases that were drop shipped from the manufactorer - not the distribution center - the day before (Monday) or the day of release was something special only in Oklahoma. Again some would be early - but never did I see any major release there 3 weeks ahead of time.

In the case of HD DVD and Blu-ray, due to various production issues, distribution is all over the map. Yes, some releases get pressed so close to street date that stock has to be drop shipped to retailers, but that is not how the system is set up for normal distribution. When things run as planned, new stock gets sent to distributors weeks before street date so that various retail channels can be filled in a timely manner. If a mailorder company is direct with first tier distribution for a given studio/studios, they may get their stock weeks before street date as well.

I know this from personal experience. A certain mailorder company that shall remain nameless is in the habit of shipping new releases as soon as they receive stock. I have received new HD DVD releases (and a few Blu-ray releases) of Warner, Paramount, and Universal titles as much as two full weeks before street date, with one week before street date being a fairly common occurance. And that's is delivered, not shipped.

On the other hand, I have also cancelled preorders with this same company due to not getting a shipping notice as late as the day before street date for some titles.