Criterion Goes Blu-Ray

[Joe1138]

From The Digital Bits:

There's more significant Blu-ray news to report this afternoon. The Criterion Collection has just officially revealed (in their latest newsletter) that they're going Blu later this year, and that their first dozen or so titles on the format will begin to arrive in stores in October. All will feature new high-def restorations and will include ALL of the extras from the DVD editions. They'll even be priced to match the DVDs. Among the first titles will be the likes of The Third Man, Bottle Rocket, Chungking Express, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Last Emperor (available both as a special edition box set and standalone theatrical version, each on both Blu-ray and DVD), El Norte, The 400 Blows, Gimme Shelter, The Complete Monterey Pop, Contempt, Walkabout (an updated edition, also on both Blu-ray and standard DVD), For All Mankind and The Wages of Fear. Great news indeed!

...And that's why on demand downloads still have a ways to go before they corner the market for the true film snobs out there.

[stan Marsh]

I would love to have shichinin no samurai on BD, hope criterion can hook that up. Their SD release of it looks pretty damn good for an old film being upconverted on a BD player.

[darthpsychotic]

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsarchives.html

TheDigitalBits on potential Blu-Ray releases for The Godfather and Indiana Jones IV releases later this year. Indeed the entire Indiana Jones Quadrilogy is now being rumored for release.

www.zonadvd.com
www.1080b.com

[hr]
(LATE UPDATE - 5/13/08 - 5:15 PM PDT)

Okay, we've heard back from Paramount. They tell me officially that the artwork posted on the 1080b website is fake (it looks like someone took the DVD covers and mocked up Blu-ray versions in Photoshop), which we already suspected. They also tell me that they currently have no information regarding the status of these titles being released on Blu-ray... which is something of a non-denial denial. So... where does that leave us?

After hearing back from some of our sources around the industry this afternoon, and now Paramount, what I think is this: It's possible, but not yet officially decided, that we could see these titles on Blu-ray this year. There are discussions, there's some work being done, but the trigger hasn't actually been pulled yet and official announcements have obviously not yet been made. Interestingly, a number of retailers have now e-mailed me to say they've heard the titles may be coming this year. So while there isn't fire yet, there's definitely smoke. If I had to lay odds, I think there's about a 70/30 chance of both the Godfather films and Indy IV coming to Blu-ray later this year, but the rest of the Indy films are still just 50/50. Again, cross your fingers, be patient and hopefully we'll hear more officially one way or the other soon. We will, of course, keep you updated.

Back tomorrow. Stay tuned...

(EARLY UPDATE - 5/13/08 - 3:30 PM PDT)

Afternoon, folks! We've got a new DVD review for you today. We figured some of you might have a few questions about this set, so we've gotten our hands on Lucasfilm and Paramount's new Indiana Jones Adventure Collection DVD box set (in stores today), and I've given it a look for you. Is it worth the money or is it just a shameless double-dip? Surprisingly, it's a little of both. It's absolutely a double-dip, but the new material is kind of cool. And the video quality is actually very slightly better than the original DVD release. Check out the review and you'll see what we mean.

In terms of news today, here's something interesting that would normally go in The Rumor Mill (so take it with a MAJOR grain of salt): The Spanish DVD website 1080b is reporting that Paramount will be releasing both The Godfather: The Francis Ford Coppola Restoration and The Indiana Jones Quadrilogy on Blu-ray Disc on 10/29. They've even got cover art for the supposed Spanish versions of the discs, though it looks somewhat fake. Now, it's possible that this is legit, but we don't know how reliable the site is. We've got calls and e-mails out to both our industry sources and the studio, however, so we'll let you know more as soon as we can confirm anything. If it's fake, we would expect Paramount to want to kill the rumor pretty quickly. If it IS true, it would obviously be HUGE news, so rest assured we'll leave no stone unturned.

We'll be back later this evening or tomorrow morning with more announcement news and anything we're able to learn about Godfather and Indy on Blu-ray.

[Editor's Note: A second Spanish DVD website, ZonaDVD, is also now reporting that Paramount (in Europe) has confirmed with them that both Indy and Godfather are coming to Blu-ray in Spain in October, and also that Top Gun and Transformers are due then as well. I expect to hear back from Paramount and/or Lucasfilm here in the States soon. It's worth pointing out that neither has issued an official denial yet, which you'd expect they'd be quick to do if this was completely bogus. So, fingers crossed, there might actually be something to this. We'd expected the Godfather films and probably Indy IV on BD this year, but the complete Indy saga on the format is something of a surprise. Information from our sources has been that Spielberg was pushing for it to happen, but Lucas wanted to wait a couple years. Maybe he's changed his mind. Guess we'll see soon enough. I would expect this to very quickly prompt either official denials, or some kind of confirmation - neither Lucasfilm or Paramount is likely to want false rumors floating around for long. Stay tuned...]

[hr]

[Wesman]

"Quadrilogy"


I always wondered what it would be called...

[Joe1138]

I would love to have shichinin no samurai on BD, hope criterion can hook that up.

Same here, although I'm partial to Yojimbo and hope that little samurai flick gets a Criterion BD release ASAP (hell, let's just get all of AK's flicks in high def).

[yarq]

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[yarq]

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