Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Just got an email back from Disney

It IS the new restoration, they just slipped it in under the radar without any fanfare, and didn't tell anyone in PR about it either

*sigh*

Rejoice!

Man it's odd how this all played out. Good news though. Maybe they are going low profile so they wont get hammered with rebate/trade-in requests. Kidding.

[Mr. Cinema]

Avatar update. Yesterday, the 13th day of release, it earned another $18 mil, bringing the US total to a whopping $268 mil. Foreign is $476 mil and a worldwide of $745 mil. That's extremely impressive for 13 days of release.

I was reading on Deadline Hollywood and it looks like some projections are for $50 mil this weekend. Could be up to $335 mil after Sunday. If it does some seriously steady business in 2010, I think it could reach $500 mil US. Not alot of competition for the next few months...

It certainly has the makings for a mega hit in the league of Titanic and The Dark Knight.

[horseflesh]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I also think we'll have multiple great franchise sets next year (not Star Wars). At least 3 I know everyone wants are on tap

The obvious three; Indy, Alien and BTTF?

[Mr. Cinema]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

The obvious three; Indy, Alien and BTTF?

LOTR would make 4. If things go well, hopefully a Jurassic Park trilogy would make 5.

[Mr. Cinema]

Next year is the 50th anniversary of Psycho, which would be a PERFECT opportunity to release it on BD. Universal wouldn't pass that up, would they?

[Robert Harris]

Jeff,

I'm aware that you're quoting Disney (or Miramax), but they have no idea what they're reporting, as there have been no restorative efforts toward Gangs. This is not a restoration. The film is not in need of restoration -- merely a quality scan toward a resultant Blu-ray.

This brings to mind the laserdisc of the Disney "classic" The Little Mermaid, which arrived with a banner across the top of the album proclaiming something like "Now Fully Restored!". I was in Technicolor shortly thereafter, and asked what they had done to damage Disney's negative, and why there was no protection. I received a huge "huh?"

Restoration is a term of art, which unfortunately is overused and abused, generally by marketing people. It sounds great and adds a certain amount of "sizzle," even when it isn't necessary.

All that Disney needs to relate is "Now professionally and correctly brought to Blu-ray and DVD." As an aside, they owe the public a trade-in program once Gangs does appear with the quality that it deserves and deserved.

RAH

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I have a call in to Disney about this again, but I checked it out a month ago when it was originally solicited, and had my contact there check it out as well.

I have a triple check in with Disney right now, but a lot of people aren't in the office this week The only thing I can find that would lead to this is on the sellsheet there's "All new digital restoration"

So I'll get final word, but I had them double check this a month ago.

[Eternal_Sunshine]

Is the Canadian Blu-ray of "The Queen" (credited to Miramax) identical to the US version (from Disney)?

[jaaguir]

Happy New Year Jeff.

Has "The African queen" been pulled out of schedule? It was up for pre-order at Amazon some time ago but now it isn't. I didn't pre-order then so I don't know whether they sent something like cancellation warning e-mails or not.

Thanks,

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

Jeff,

I'm aware that you're quoting Disney (or Miramax), but they have no idea what they're reporting, as there have been no restorative efforts toward Gangs. This is not a restoration. The film is not in need of restoration -- merely a quality scan toward a resultant Blu-ray.

Did it receive this for the Feb release?

[Mr. Cinema]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Did it receive this for the Feb release?

I hope they did something. The Amazon listing says Remastered. Hopefully that's not incorrect.

[wallendo]

Originally Posted by jaaguir

Happy New Year Jeff.

Has "The African queen" been pulled out of schedule? It was up for pre-order at Amazon some time ago but now it isn't. I didn't pre-order then so I don't know whether they sent something like cancellation warning e-mails or not.

Thanks,

I pre-ordered, and have not received any cancellation e-mail.

[Jeff Kleist]

Someone asked what I'm looking forward to in 2010

Assuming that the sex changes of a few characters are the only alterations of course. The picture just wrapped shooting a couple weeks ago, so what's in this commerical is probably everything that's actually finished to a point they can show people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBu1c...layer_embedded

This and Tron come out about a week apart, the pain of waiting!

No idea on African Queen, but a lot of retailer systems have been buggy the last few days (check out that $1.50 blu-ray "sale" at Fry's ) The oracle on such things is closed till post CES (however the "buy Jeff an emergency plane ticket to CES to go ask your question in person) fund is very much open

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBu1c...layer_embedded

Wow. I never would have guessed as much, but after seeing that... I'm sort of looking forward to it, too. I would've predicted unmitigated disaster, but it looks... maybe viable?

[Drewza89]

Any chance that we'll see The Three Stooges on Blu soon? I haven't had the opportunity to see the restored DVD collections, but I hear that they look great.

[Jeff Kleist]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Wow. I never would have guessed as much, but after seeing that... I'm sort of looking forward to it, too. I would've predicted unmitigated disaster, but it looks... maybe viable?

My biggest fear, outside it being terrible, is that they'll exclude international subs from the blu. No matter what they think, this is not carrying a huge pricetag. In America, Yamato is owned by a subsidiary of Nishizaki's company that typically consists of a 70ish lawyer and his wife, who once threatened to sue me if I printed front page news from japan's new York times equiv about Nishizaki's arrest for drugs and his gun collection. I just hope they realize the market for this film are 30+ Trekkies who watched the show in the 70s/80s, and that no matter how cute Takuya is, no one here know who he is

Disney actually owned the rights to make this for about a decade, and I have 2 revisions of the script in my collection. Of course, the Yamato was replaced with the Arizona, and each one was worse and worse, completely unrecognizable even with the source ship swap. I'm glad they let it go, it just never really stood a chance without its heart.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

The obvious three; Indy, Alien and BTTF?

I would love to be wrong, but I have a hard time believe Indy would be coming this soon especially when 2011 is the 30th ann of Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, I want to be wrong!!

[Moviefan1203]

Originally Posted by Drewza89

Any chance that we'll see The Three Stooges on Blu soon? I haven't had the opportunity to see the restored DVD collections, but I hear that they look great.

You probably won't be seeing that released on Blu-ray until the biopic comes out, I haven't heard much on the project lately. I know Jim Carrey was gaining a lot of weight for his role, and I hope the project didn't get stalled.

[doctorsteve]

Hi Gentlemens...

The February release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - a straight H-DVD port, or has it been remastered/cleaned/audio remixed/etc.???

Cheers,

Doc

[MerrickG]

Well Jeff,

Avatar pulled in another $25 mill on friday and you said if it was getting like $50 mill on its 3rd weekend then it might be onto something.

Well it looks might good for that film to pull in $50 this weekend.

Could this be a film with long legs that hasnt been seen since, well Titanic.

On another note, I just finished Assassins Creed 2 and I have to say that game puts the first one to shame in every conceivable way. I dont know if Ive ever seen a sequel just completely dominate its predecessor.


The God of War collection was pretty awesome as well.

[Jeff Kleist]

Could this be a film with long legs that hasnt been seen since, well Titanic.

Dark Knight?

Shenmue 2 was that much better than its predecessor

That's the problem with this generation. The first game is the tech demo, the second game is the one they were actually trying to make

See what it does next weekend when the holiday isn't on as well. Mind you, I'm happy it's doing well, but I'm kinda confused with the fanboyism over it, as it's probably Cameron's worst film since Pirahna 2 (mind you, that's a pretty high end scale, but still). I'm a lot more excited for the films that it'll generate personally

Personally I'm happy The Princess and the Frog has done a lot better take. It got a rum release slot and people are finally going to see it. Anything that justifies Lassetter's faith in hand-drawn animation is great in my book.