Here in the US, independent distributor Echo Bridge has announced their initial slate of high-def releases – and they’re also exclusively Blu-ray. They’re planning to bargain price their releases at $14.95, with six titles due April 1, 2008. The titles are the theatrical releases The Last Sentinel and Artie Lange’s Beer League, TV mini-series 10.5: Apocalypse, Category 7: The End of the World, and The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, and telefilm Blackbeard.

But the biggest news comes from Warner. Warner is celebrating their 85th Anniversary with a large slate of releases in 2008 and 2009 and, of course, after May they’re all Blu-ray exclusive – no more HD DVD. (Well, and DVD of course. ) They’ll be (re-)releasing Special Edition DVD versions of many of their classic films, and Warner intends to release Blu-ray versions day and date with the new DVD versions. The Digital Bits covered the story extensively and Blu-ray.com compiled this nice list of known Blu-ray releases (with some tweaks from me based on The Digital Bits’ coverage):

08Q1

• Bonnie and Clyde: Ultimate Collector’s Edition (also on HD DVD)

08Q2

• Dirty Harry: Ultimate Collector’s Edition Box Set (Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact, Dead Pool, and Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows)
• Twister (also on HD DVD)

08Q3

• An American in Paris
• Batman Anthology
• Batman Begins: Ultimate Collector’s Edition
• Gigi
• How the West was Won
• The Dark Night

08Q4

• A Christmas Story: Ultimate Collector’s Edition
• Otis: Uncut

2008

• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• Casablanca
• Clash of the Titans
• Excalibur
• Forbidden Planet
• Heat
• Grand Prix
• The Matrix Trilogy
• Mutiny on the Bounty
• V for Vendetta

2009

• Ben-Hur
• Gone With the Wind
• North by Northwest
• The Wizard of Oz
• Woodstock

And note that this list is not complete, it is just the titles Warner has announced at this time. There will be more titles announced going forward. Additionally, with the movie to Blu-ray and its increased capacity, Warner will be released all of their high-def titles with lossless audio. High-Def Digest also has coverage of the story.

I bet that their 85th Anniversary played a role in Warner’s decision to go Blu-ray exclusively. Not that it had to be BD, but that continuing to support two formats when they new they’d be doing a huge push with a lot of new and catalog titles to celebrate the anniversary would be very expensive. While some of the work could be shared, there is still a lot of unique authoring costs for each format. But now that they are Blu, their big push is going to be very tough for HD DVD to match. The HD DVD camp’s current release slate is anemic at best. And this is just Warner, all the other BD studios have a number of big releases coming.