Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (TCFHE) unveiled an aggressive global Blu-ray Disc release strategy, including 29 new release and catalog titles that runs through the end of the year. Among the many highlights are six day & date BD/DVD new theatrical releases from Fox such as FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER and LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD and Fox's first-ever TV release on BD: PRISON BREAK.
"Given that Blu-ray has consistently outsold HD DVD all year, and this is the case for any titles released by any studio in both formats, we believe that the time is right for us to accelerate our activities and help convert the nearly 60 million high-definition households worldwide into Blu-ray households," noted Mike Dunn, president Worldwide, TCFHE. "By the end of this calendar year there will be expansive availability of technically vibrant releases featuring never-before-seen, advanced BD-J interactivity as well as a broad offering of playback devices at attractive prices that will prove to any doubting consumers once and for all that Blu-ray is the only way."
Among the BD industry "firsts" from the studios' upcoming global release slate are picture in picture capability, enhanced viewing and surround sound modes with the ability to mix and match picture and sound, direct access to in-movie features through one of the four colored buttons on the BD remote and the most technically vibrant BD-Java interactive multi-player challenge and trivia games to date. The studios' slate also takes full advantage of BD-Live functionality this fourth quarter. Internet-connected consumers will enjoy unique, title specific "web-enabled" interactive features and games and "web-exclusive" downloadable content with the ability to connect and interact with other broadband BD users worldwide.
Other upcoming titles include MASTER AND COMMANDER, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, FROM HELL (Oct. 2); EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, 18 DAYS LATER, ROBOCOP (Oct. 9), I ROBOT (Nov. 13) and INDEPENDENCE DAY (Dec. 4).
Twentieth Century Fox Home Ent. LLC (TCFHE) is the worldwide marketing, sales and distribution company for all Fox film and television programming on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD) as well as acquisitions and original productions. The company also releases all products around the globe for MGM Home Ent. Twentieth Century Fox Home Ent. is a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. a News Corp. company.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
