Classic Films

[Izzy]

Hello All!

First post! PS3 Owner.

What does the future hold for older classic films?

Will they even bother because the prints are so old?

Would be nice to see movies from the 40-60's.

[Gremal]

Warner is issuing a few titles, including The Dirty Dozen, Battle of the Bulge and two Elvis films later this month. The resolution of 1080p allows you to see the source material far better than NTSC allows. You can bet there will be a huge push to release old films on BD as the format achieves greater market penetration.

[BigB88]

Originally Posted by Gremal

Warner is issuing a few titles, including The Dirty Dozen, Battle of the Bulge and two Elvis films later this month. The resolution of 1080p allows you to see the source material far better than NTSC allows. You can bet there will be a huge push to release old films on BD as the format achieves greater market penetration.

Battle of the Bulge is extremely well done, so is Bullit. I think they did a great job on both taking into account the age of the films.

[RUR]

What hard sales data we have tends to show that older i.e. catalogue titles don't sell nearly as well as recent blockbusters. Since the studios' principal motive is to make money, releasing catalogue titles is not a big priority until the user base expands enough to make them profitable. As with any generalization, there are exceptions and something like Wizard of Oz could conceivably do fairly well.

Old prints can be restored and one need only watch The Searchers to see just how spectacular the results can be.

Some general discussion on older movies here https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=14688 , though "older" is a flexible term as regards the many members of this forum.

[Izzy]

I agree blockbusters sell more, but it would be a shame if all that was sold were the "resident evils, and Pirates" stuff. I own all those, but would like to collect a nice Blu library.

[theknub]

remember, we're still early in the game. rome wasn't built in a day and there is no way they will publish a bunch of catalog titles in blu extraordinarily fast.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Gremal

Warner is issuing a few titles, including The Dirty Dozen, Battle of the Bulge and two Elvis films later this month. The resolution of 1080p allows you to see the source material far better than NTSC allows. You can bet there will be a huge push to release old films on BD as the format achieves greater market penetration.

All of Warner's recent high-profile Ultra Resolution(TM) DVD restorations over the past three or four years (Oz, Robin Hood, Meet Me in St. Louis, etc.) were onto hi-definition masters, which probably explains how they were able to get Robin Hood, Searchers and Casablanca out onto HD so quickly.

Right now, the problem's more of a "market" issue, where they're still fighting to grab drooling gamer-boi...er "early adopters" with action titles, and they can blame "Bad sales" as some excuse not to get more Humphrey Bogart out there--But once the living-room players start selling (which they haven't so far), that's when the market can safely shift to some studio "keeper" favorites.

So far, the only way most studios have been able to market a library Blu reissue is to market some excuse to reissue the DVD as part of the deal (eg. Superman 1 tying in with the HD/Blu "Returns" and the Superman SD Box)--
Which means we'll have to wait for anniversary editions, sequels, tie-in remakes, etc., for older titles to start peeking out of their vault.

[Rob71]

The Seventh Seal is coming out on October 22 in the UK.

[jamclaur]

I'd like to get Psycho on BD. And The Wizard of Oz.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Izzy

Hello All!

First post! PS3 Owner.

What does the future hold for older classic films?

Will they even bother because the prints are so old?

Would be nice to see movies from the 40-60's.

Welcome! Warner seems to be the champion of older films, and already done some amazing things. John Wayne movies (The Searchers, Rio Grande) are out on Blu-ray.

Warner still owes us Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, so close ), and Forbidden Planet. These have been released on HD DVD and Warner has promised to catch-up.

If late 60's are to your liking then there is Bullit (out now), and 2001 A Space Odyssey (Oct 23).

Sony has 20 Million Miles to Earth coming out in December.

[Rob Zuber]

I know I'm going to have to wait a very long time to get my old favorites.

IMHO, Hollywood went downhill after 1950 and has never quite recovered.

No offense to paidgeek.

[RUR]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

John Wayne movies (The Searchers, Rio Grande) are out on Blu-ray.

...and don't forget The Cowboys. A gem of a movie I had completely forgotten until I watched it again on Blu ray.

[jdc115]

I seem to remember the same thing when DVD's came out. Initially the releases were of newer films before they started to release the older catalog only after DVD really caught on. I seem to remember a lot of talk about video stores not wanting to rent them as they believed they would have a shorter life due to damage. The older films will get there, it probably just take a while for larger adoption of HiDef before a large amount of them come out