Paramount Blu-ray Titles Available Again

Posted on Sunday, February 24, 2008 by MegaZone

I said this the other day, referring to Paramount resuming Blu-ray sales:

Since Paramount, and DreamWorks Animation, were formerly format neutral, releasing both Blu-ray and HD DVD, I kind of expected them to be the first to jump on the news. Paramount probably still has warehouses full of Blades of Glory Blu-ray discs, and other titles they’d already pressed for release on BD before their sudden shift to HD DVD exclusivity. They could start by give those discs a new street date. I’m sure they’ll announce their plans soon.

Well, it seems they did have those warehouses of discs in reserve, as the Blu-ray Stats News Log reports a number of Paramount Blu-ray discs are already back up on Amazon. Babel, Failure to Launch, Four Brothers, Hustle and Flow, The Manchurian Candidate, Mission Impossible III, Nacho Libre, Payback, Reds, Sahara, Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow, U2 – Rattle & Hum, and World Trade Center are all available directly form Amazon now. (They erroneously report Black Rain as being available too. Dave C. reported via a comment that it was available, but has gone back to unavailable.) That’s 13 titles out of the 32 titles Paramount offered on Blu-ray before their switch to HD DVD exclusivity. We’ll probably see more of the titles return soon.

Spotted via EngadgetHD.

About MegaZone

MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • http://www.blu-raystats.com/NewsLog/ Dave C

    Well, Black Rain was available when the article was written.

    It will be interesting to see if it returns to being available any time soon…

  • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

    Ah, OK, must’ve run out of stock – or they goofed in making it available. These titles may have been in Amazon’s own warehouses and they’re now allowed to sell them again. The real tell will be when titles like Blades of Glory hit again. We know Paramount pressed those, since some of them got out before they pulled them. So there should still be stocks of them in Paramount’s warehouses. They should be able to just ship them out to retailers again – but they’ll probably want to set a new date, do the marketing, etc.

  • http://www.blu-raystats.com/NewsLog/ Dave C

    Yeah, it is not too surprising that they might not have a lot of stock for these titles. It will be interesting to see if they just ship the discs they most likely have in storage, like Blades of Glory and maybe Top Gun and Face/Off. Word is Transformers was authored but never pressed – at this point I would hope that they would re-author Transformers to make it a BD Live title though. It surprises me how quiet the studio has been, with the new ‘mystery status’ associated with the ‘There Will be Blood’ HD DVD just adding to their lack of desire to keep ‘us’ informed as to their plans.

  • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

    What surprises me the most is that, based on their public statements and announcements, it really seems like Universal is more on top of the switch to Blu-ray than Paramount. And that’s not what I would’ve expected, given Paramounts previous experience releasing Blu-ray and Universals lack thereof.

    I also wonder how many titles will really get re-authored to take advantage of Blu-ray instead of just being ported directly from the HD DVD release. I think that flagship titles clearly have a better chance at getting proper treatment, while less popular titles and older catalog titles will most likely just be ported directly without any changes other than the menus.

  • http://www.blu-raystats.com/NewsLog/ Dave C

    For Uni I think we will see three ‘tiers’ – the ones they do a new encode for, the ones they port and the ones that aren’t worth doing (yet).

    Paramount had always done a higher bitrate encode for BD. Still I think they could redo some titles better (like add PiP for MI: III).

    Indeed it does seem like Paramount has been caught somewhat unawares by the Toshiba announcement. I hope they will clarify their position soon.

  • http://www.blu-raystats.com/NewsLog/ Dave C

    Black Rain is currently available again – though it says “Only 1 left in stock–order soon.”

    If you want it, better hurry :D I guess they found one that had fallen behind the shelf :D