Cool. There were some Cary Grant titles I had been meaning to get.

Nice to hear about this. Hopefully they'll put up a list of some of the possible titles that they'll offer soon.

Sounds like good news!

Using pressed Blu-ray sounds rather odd considering, to the best of my knowledge, they never pressed any DVDs for their archive titles.

Pressing a small run of 1000 DVDs costs much less than pressing 1000 Blu-ray discs because of all the extra license fees involved with pressing Blu-ray.

BD-R's are generally pretty good as most of the ones I use have the same anti-scratch protective layer as the pressed versions.

Are you actually disappointed that they're not BD-Rs?

Not at all, I just hope they're not using the term "replicated" (pressing) when they really mean "duplicated" (burning). Add to that they're $10 less than the DVD titles. It just seems odd.

Either way, BD-Rs are still acceptable.

I'd love to have Gypsy. Can we get a list?

Great News! I'm especially happy about Fearless finally becoming available in it's OAR.

And Warner always has sales on the archive titles so I am sure that eventually these will be available for cheaper prices in a sale.

Beginning about August, all the multi-disc sets they release (3 or more discs) will initially be pressed. When that supply runs out, they will transition to burned.

Also, the DVD-R Archive titles may have higher list prices at other e-tailers like Amazon and B&N, but most are now $14.95-$18.95 on the WBshop site.
And of course can be had for much less during any of their frequent sales (and the next good one should be starting a week from today).

I'm just fine with the price point and initial news of this-
however
another way to think of this is that they merely shifted two of their standard retail catalog releases out of the normal retail chain and have set a more rigid price point for them. Even 24 titles a year isn't all that many when you look at the scope of the catalog titles they now control (which includes Paramount and the Sam Goldwyn catalog). They could release 24 per month and I would still find myself waiting years to get certain titles.
Fearless is great news for it's fans, but I've been pining for Year Of Living Dangerously and at the same time would absolutely upgrade Mosquito Coast. If it's just Fearless, I'm going to be disappointed as only 23 other open slots/year doesn't bode well for a speedy release of the others.
The news is a net positive, I do believe, but not quite as amazing as I reflexively thought.

^ In fairness, the press release did say a minimum of one to two releases per month, so we might end up getting far more than just 24 titles a year. If these Blu-rays sell pretty well, I'm sure we'll start getting more than just two releases per month. It all depends on how well they do, but it seems like the DVDs have done well. I think that bodes well for the future of the Blu-rays. I'm hoping anyway.

As you say, there are a huge number of titles at their disposal. I'd like to see a longer list of titles planned for release, but I am optimistic considering just the four we know about. All four titles are from directors of note, even though Mervyn LeRoy might not be a household name.

HUDSUCKER PROXY - Sure sure!

I just wish Netflix would pick a lot of the Archive up and rent them (DVD & now BD). A lot of movies I would like to see but don't want to own.

With that being the case, then bring on both The Hudsucker Proxy and Fearless! And throw in Running On Empty while you're at it!

The multi-disc DVD sets released through the Archive are released as pressed copies first, then burned copies are made once that initial batch sells through.

I never knew that. Do they mark them as MODs once they start doing burned copies? And, are the sets clearly marked as pressed DVDs when released or is this something that must be assumed?

want Hudsucker Proxy, you know, for kids.

this is good news IMHO and Im in for Hudsucker and Fearless first up.

At the top of my wishlist.

I don't want to turn this into a WB wish list, but I really hope Nothing But Trouble is early out the gate.

and FEDS!

Very cool, though I'm pretty underwhelmed by the 1st two titles.

My guess is that many of the more popular titles people will name for this program's wish list are off-limits to Warner Archive. The main home video division has to sign off on consigning any movie to this program and there is probably a very lengthy list of movies that never will fall under its purview.

The first two announced releases somewhat give that away, because there are more commercial choices Warner Archive could have made to start the program.

Still, having a Coen Bros. film as an early release offers a lot of promise for what the future might hold.

I hope they will continue to release titles that were only released in non-OAR on DVD. The Candidate, Clean & Sober, Running on Empty and Star 80 are just a few I would like to see make it into the program.

This is great news for us catalog film lovers! I think this will succeed a lot better than a Twilight Time type model, due to price point alone. Warner has usually given their MOD DVDs very decent transfers, so hopefully they will follow suit in 1080p. Hopefully the titles aren't BD-Rs; if this is the case, they will certainly be limited to only 25 GB single-layered discs, which would compromise qualiity on some of the longer films.

I'm not excited about the first four titles (well, maybe DEATHTRAP), but the Warner back catalog is deep, so I'm sure we'll see some real gems come out of this. And, the best news of all is that wbarchive has some great sales around BF and the holidays, so we may see these for < $15 each!

So, you missed the part where they said they would be pressed BD's, and not BD-R's?

so i can get Ken Russell's 'The Boyfriend' on blu ??? that'd be ultra sweet