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Feltenstein: WB Spent $6 Million Restoring Classics for Blu-ray
Posted December 15, 2009 04:57 PM by Juan Calonge

In a recent interview, George Feltenstein, senior vice president for theatrical catalog marketing at Warner Home Video, has stated that the studio spent "more than six million dollars" to bring 'Woodstock', 'The Wizard of Oz', 'North by Northwest' and 'Gone with the Wind' to Blu-ray. "We're biting the bullet and bringing classics to Blu-ray so we can broaden the base."

Feltenstein also revealed: "We're devoting our marketing efforts and our resources and staff on the retail level" to these releases, "primarily driven by the fact that these are making their debut on Blu-ray."

Feltenstein raised the chicken-and-egg issue of format adoption and catalog width: "My problem with Blu-ray is that the kind of movies I love are not available on Blu-ray, and they're not going to be available on Blu-ray until the player base gets bigger, and that's why we're biting the bullet and bringing classics to Blu-ray so we can broaden the base. So the news overall is really quite positive."

The executive also laments that "people buying at the retail level, they don't know who these people [actors from the Golden Age of Cinema] are, they think an old classic movie is 'The Silence of the Lambs'". However, he admits his share of responsability regarding the current situation of catalog titles, because he was behind releasing movie collections on DVD: "Buy the film noirs [collection], get five movies for $35... And now we're coming out with a [Warner Archive] movie, it's 20 bucks, so I see why some people don't understand... But ten years ago, people would pay $30 for a movie, they'd pay a fortune for a laserdisc, so it's really all perception."

Feltenstein claims that the media has "spun paranoia" about the future of home video saying that "DVD is dying and Blu-ray is threatening. In Feltenstein's opinion, "Blu-ray is the greatest thing ever invented" and they only thing that can make DVD die "is people going on TV saying it is dying."

The Warner executive considers himself "a film enthusiast of the highest order" and says that he reads "everything that people say on the boards." His experience is that "people don't go on the Internet to say, 'I just bought the 'Forbidden Hollywood' William Wellman set, and I just loved it.' But they'll be running to say, 'Oh my God, there was a scratch on frame three of scene five' — these people are obsessed with trying to find something wrong."

Source: Bloodshot Eye | Permalink Relevant for:
Wow would've thought it'd be a lot more.