NiCK Crush

I'll be getting both. Sucker for CE's.

Gizmo

I'd pay up to $35...maybe $40 for WoZ. Maybe. But no way will I pay $60. Warner has got to be shitting themselves if they think this is a good idea in this economy.

NiCK Crush

Well, I might not get it right away. Deals will surely pop up. But yea, don't like the price at all.

bunkaroo

I was interested in both of these titles just as I was Casablanca, but I will not go more than $30. WB is just pricing themselves out of sales here. Same goes for the Notebook - I would have bought it for $20 but I don't want all the crap it comes with or a non-standard BD case, and I hate printing my own art - I want the real thing.

I guess it will be rentals.

dx23

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/hd-talk/549...er-2009-a.html

dx23

Link with incredibly and ridiculous high prices:

http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Anniversa.../dp/B0013N7FZ6

http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Anniver...u-wl_list-recs

BuckNaked2k

Wow. They can sit on them at those prices. I'll wait.

Also, not a fan of non-standard packaging. That silliness should have ended with DVD.

Sparrow

I just placed a placeholder order for both at Amazon.com, but I'm not pleased with the prices. Let's hope that they do come down in price before they ship.

Cosmic Bus

To stick two revered films like this exclusively into expensive collector's sets is ridiculous and is obviously going to hurt sales. Undoubtedly, Warner will later dumbly mention that the market just isn't there for classics on Blu...

Doctorossi

You're not really helping by pre-ordering them at the current price.

GenPion

I agree. Pricing these closer to normal releases would actually, I think, convince more people to even go Blu that may not have considered it otherwise. This is ridiculous.

BuckNaked2k

Wow....#6 and #11 on Amazon Blu-ray list already.

PopcornTreeCt

And they talk about this bad economy we're having.

Steve Phillips

I'm interested in GWTW, but *only* if I can get a version in more normal sized packaging (like Blade Runner); if the only option is some giant sized thing with a bunch of fake lobbycards and other items I don't want, then I'll wait.

Richard Malloy

Until the price comes down to standard levels, these will be Netflix rentals only for me (and, fortunately, Netflix does seem to carry new releases of previously-released catalog titles whenever they come out on blu-ray ... fingers-crossed that this continues).

Giles

well they ARE pre-orders.

Paul_SD

That's just it-there isn't a good market for classics in general and especially on the HD media. If you are a studio you make an end run around this by targeting only the hardcore fans and people whose interest is piqued by fancy 'deluxe' sets. Then by loading up the package with cheap-to-produce paper and plastic material, you can jack the msrp up 3 x's.
Had these been released in regular no frills cases, they would have had to sell 3xs as many as the would with the deluxe versions...in a climate where a lot of households are or may come to curtail casual purchases.
To me this doesn't speak to Warners greed and lack of business acumen, as it does to the sad realities of the Bd market.
If they felt certain they could generate the same revenue from these by volume(and loer msrp) as they will by high msrp(and lower volume) I'm pretty sure they would have.
This isn't anything unexpected to people who have been following this stuff for a while. Catalog sales (on Bd especially) are woeful and classics sales as bad or worse.

Doctorossi

I think Cosmic Bus is correct, though, that (at least at this relatively early stage of the game) it's a little chicken or egg. I know a lot of people (myself and many others on this site included) who are staying away from these releases because of the asking price and I'm willing to bet some people will stay away from Blu-ray in general because of it, too. Any fans of the classics who are on the fence about buying into Blu-ray aren't likely to say "Only $90 a title? Sign me up!"

It may be a somewhat viable short-term strategy to bring in some revenue from your existing base, but it's probably not a plausible way to grow a business.

LorenzoL

I would have bought Casablanca in a heartbeat if it came in a regular edition without the lobby cards and all of the other stuff along with the above two titles.

I don't like this trend with WB in releasing movies on Blu-ray with their "Ultimate Edition" package and charging us $20 to $30 more especially for these classics.

Doctorossi

+1.

davidh777

I think there's truth in this. Warner already released Casablanca on HD DVD (and gave away a lot in those offers), and apparently they chose a different strategy for BD (I know the markets are different, etc. etc.). Didn't George Feltenstein in the HighDefDigest interview say that Quo Vadis, An American in Paris, and Gigi (all standard-case releases) are going to be canaries in the mining tunnel for Warner?

jarofclay73

Rental for me. Maybe get it on eBay for cheap.

XavierMike

I have the Casablanca set, and it is one of my favorites. I like the various movie collectibles, and I'm really looking forward to these releases. I wouldn't want them for every release, but these movies they realy seem like a good idea.

But, it does make sense that there should be an option to get a bare bones edition as well.

Giles

what the hell does that mean?

Josh Z

If they don't sell, Warner will likely scale back their release strategy for classic titles.