This will be mine only with HD audio. Come on Warner, please don't screw with Batman. Please!

I'll nab the box set. I like the first three movies to varying degrees, but count me in the camp that thinks Batman Returns is the best, and at least one of the best comic book movies ever made -- perfect dosage of fun and twistedness.

Indeed. :)

I'm in for the full st as long as we get HD Audio.

What? 25 + 9 = 34. It's not like it wouldn't fit a BD50.

Man they are really cutting corners at Warners.

Sold my anthology set for 100.00 back in august in preperation. Lossless audio would be nice but the remixes on anthology for Batman were pretty underwhelming, so I am not holding out any hope.

Heck -- I wouldn't be surprised if all the extras got shoehorned into a single-layer DVD.

"Batman" has been a favorite of mine for all 20 (well, 19 so far) of its years, and -- doggonnit, Warner Bros. -- it deserves better. It's not like this is some crapfest that nobody's ever heard of. This was the biggest movie of 1989. The influence it had on other films and popular culture in general is truly profound. And all Warner can commit to is a BD25 and (more than likely) recycled SD extras stamped onto a DVD??

What happened to the commitment to providing the best possible presentation for their films? Wasn't there some big announcement about that sort of thing back in, like, January or something?

Not only is it possible that the BD25 probably has extra space left over (and I never had the original DVD set so its possible those extra features for Disc 2 are only a few GBS of space) but all of this could have been stuck on a BD50 with no issues.

Either Warner is cutting corners or the 2 disc set is seen as "more value" on the retail shelf to potential customers. I'm getting irked with this Warner crap now. First they drop HD audio from tons of their releases, catalog and day and dates, then force customers to pay an extra $5 for a stupid CD sampler with Beetlejuice, then they drop all the planned features including a DD5.1 track from the Christmas Story "re-release". I am getting so sick of this crap.

I sold my set for $75 in hopes to pick this up, but now I think no... Im really tired of this buying and re-buying with them not really doing much to make it better. Fuck it.

Yup. Saw it right after I graduated from HS. 20 years. FUCK!

Take this with a huge grain of salt: someone at blu-ray.com mentioned a rumor that some of the incentives that WB received for going Blu-ray exclusive included free or close-to-free BD-25 replication for a set period of time. That's the first I'd heard such a rumor and I have no idea if it's true, but if it is, it would help explain why WB has decided to release certain titles on BD-25s that seem to clearly warrant a BD-50 instead.

Just for fun I crunched some numbers over at blu-raystats.com. In 2007 (the first full-year with decent BD-50 production capacity), ~42% of WB's releases were on BD-25s. Thus far in 2008, ~44% have been BD-25s. Though that is an increase, it's not a significant difference, so that doesn't really make a convincing argument for the above rumor. (Interesting sidenote, WB has increased the percentage of releases with lossless audio from 46% in 2007 to 51% in 2008 - still a long way to go).

Whether the rumor is true or not, this has to be some kind of cost-savings move by WB. And I hate to say it, but it's probably smart business. Most consumers don't know or care about the capacity of the disc they're buying - they just want Batman in hi-def with fancy packaging. The subset of us that actually pay attention to this stuff is pretty small, though I'm sure it's bigger at this point in the life of the format than it will be later.

Pretty poor excuse. They could easily fit numerous tracks/subtitles on there like they did with the last Harry Potter film which was on a BD50. I think this is just another case of cutting costs. And since Get Smart was the #1 BD last week with no lossless audio...I can't seem them changing their stance anytime soon :(

One element of harm is that it's deceptive to customers when they market the release as a 2 disc special edition. It's a marketing ploy. If they (Warner) were truly interested in offering the best possible releases for their films, they would be utilizing BD50s instead of falling back on these asinine BD25/DVD releases. They'd also be employing better transfers, lossless audio, and, for their multi-disc releases, more resilient packaging.

If, on the other hand, they want consumers to continue relying on DVD technology, then by all means, keep cranking out DVDs! My understanding was that Warner was "embracing" the Blu-ray format and all of its potential. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

Their concern for their customers as well as for their own films extends only as far as they can see a profit.

Seriously, I highly doubt Warner would have the balls to give one of their franchises a lossy track. Not that I would put it past them but this would be the first Warner release (if lossy) that would pain me not to pick up.

I'm all over Batman Returns like well, that leather suit on Michelle Pfeiffer. Gawd.. and if I'm in a certain mood, I might pick up Batman as well.

While I would prefer they just keep it all on one BD...I will purchase the anthology set as long as all four films have lossless audio...at least Warner is keeping all the extras from the previous special edition DVDs, even if it is just reusing the existing second DVD discs from the standard def release, which is more than I can say for some other studios and titles....

(And yes, I actually do want and like Batman and Robin, not in any serious way, but in a "so bad it's good" way....I find it hilarious and entertaining in all of its corny glory)....

OMG, a corporation that cares about profit??!! What has the world come to? :eek:

I got rid of my older Batman Legacy box set a while ago, anticipating a re-release of the films on DVD in a remastered form when TDK came to DVD. Well, now that this film is coming to Blu-ray, hallelujah. Glad I held out.

I sold my Anthology set for over $100 recently also, so the timing is great for this blu-ray announcement.

That's a bit of an over-simplification of my point, Josh. It's an ethical issue, and whether or not some stupid corporation chooses to observe any, I do.

Warner publicly backed Blu-ray because they said that it offered the best possible choice for consumers. Meanwhile, what's actually being produced far too much of the time is quite short of "the best". The potential of the format continues to be squandered and we the customers are being innundated with sub-standard releases of films which deserve better.

I'm all for corporations making a profit on a product truly deserving of my money. But when they or anyone else cynically pump out a crappy product in order to turn a quick buck, I'll save mine.

I hate to agree with WB, but yeah -- as Kleist says, I think the main motivation for WB is that they can reuse the bonus discs they already have, because the extras are already in SD anyway. That, in turn, saves them on BD disc size. I wouldn't be quite so cynical to suggest that they're using the two-disc thing as a ploy to lure consumers, but I see how it's a really effective cost-saving measure for them.

I really couldn't care less, as long as the transfer and HI DEF audio blow my socks off. That's what I'm buying Batman in HD for.

Considering WB has gotten TrueHD tracks on a few catalog BD-25 releases (L.A. Confidential, The Lost Boys, Purple Rain, the Twilight Zone movie), we can probably rest assured. Hell, Every Which Way But Loose has a TrueHD track. Yes, Philo Beddoe/Clyde the orangutan shenanigans with lossless audio. I'm optimistic.

I guess it goes without saying now that most of us wont buy these if they don't have high definition audio. I really hope they do include that.

L.A. Confidential is a BD50, FYI. I don't know about the others.