Paramount update,Blu-ray:pulls plug on titless

[stratman]

As reported in VB
Paramount done with HD DVD next week.


FEB. 28 | The March 4 releases Into the Wild and Things We Lost in the Fire will be Paramount Home Entertainment’s last titles in the HD DVD format, the studio confirmed.

The studio pulled the plug on the HD DVD versions of other titles that had been announced for the format, including DreamWorks Animation’s Bee Movie, due March 11, and Sweeney Todd, due April 1. Their standard DVD versions will come out as planned.

Paramount also has slated There Will Be Blood, starring Oscar-winning Daniel Day-Lewis, for standard DVD release on April 8. Online retail sites last week also listed the title as available in HD DVD, but that information has since been taken down.

The studio has not yet said what its first Blu-ray Disc releases will be.

Paramount last week said it would stop producing titles in HD DVD and switch to Blu-ray, after Toshiba announced its decision to stop marketing HD DVD hardware.

Earlier this week, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg appeared committed to HD DVD, saying that what the studio would do about Bee Movie was Toshiba’s call. “We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through,” he said.

 

[mpompey]

Great, now all I need is for MS to put out a blu-ray add on for the Xbox 360 and I'm set.

 

[aberkowitz]

They had to make a cut-off somewhere... by continuing to release HD DVD titles, that were probably going to be sold at a discount anyway, the studio was just going to keep pumping money into a black hole. It's not like there was a Transformers-like release pending in the upcoming weeks. Better to just pull the plug as soon as possible and save on pressing and distribution costs.

I'm guessing it's not going to be until mid to late summer until we start seeing Paramount releases on BD.

 

[j_garcia]

Paramount is already releasing titles in other countries on BD, all they should have to do is make new box art for distribution in the US, however the production levels of what they have are probably too low to handle world wide distribution at this time, so they will have to step that up.