Site created 12/15/97.		page created: 7/11/00 The Buzz (Page 2) back to Page 1 Unfortunately, we didn't get to speak much with the staff from Columbia TriStar, but we can tell you this much: the studio is planning to debut David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai in 2001, along with (finally!) Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. New DVD special editions of Legends of the Fall and In the Line of Fire are in the works, as is an anamorphic widescreen version of Fly Away Home. Also forthcoming are The Natural and Tootsie. We did get a chance to speak with Paramount however, and we got LOTS of artwork. There's still no word on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, other than that the title will probably street in the 4th quarter. Also, the Godfather films are still in the works, but will not arrive on DVD until sometime in 2001 at the earliest, due to the amount of restoration required. We at the Bits would gladly wait until 2007 if that's how long it takes to get the film preserved and looking like it should. To us, the restoration of the film should be the absolute priority. But here's a list of other Paramount titles on the way: Tycus (8/8), Shane, The Naked Gun, The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear, and The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (all 8/15), The Next Best Thing and Deterrence (both 8/29), It's the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and A Charlie Brown Christmas (all 9/12), Star Trek: The Original Series, Volumes 15 & 16, Pet Sematary, The Dead Zone, Passion of the Mind and RPM (all 9/19) and Snow Day and Rosemary's Baby (both 10/3). Here's a look at some of the covers for DVD titles that are on the way... MGM has revealed that their James Bond Collection, Volume 3 DVD boxed set will street on October 17th, for $134.95 SRP. The set will include Diamonds Are Forever, Octopussy, The Living Daylights, A View to a Kill, You Only Live Twice and From Russia with Love. Also available on the same day will be Never Say Never Again, but not as part of the official Bond set. Casino Royale will follow in 2001. Coming later this year are La Femme Nikita (10/3), American Pimp (10/17), a day-and-date Return to Me (10/31), Escape From New York (11/21) and Gorky Park and Sid & Nancy (December). I was also able to talk about anamorphic widescreen with MGM, and was pleased to learn that the studio is going to become MUCH more vigorous in their commitment to 16x9 on DVD in 2001. MGM is a studio in sort of a regrouping mode, having lost their MGM catalog to Warner. They currently own the United Artists, Orion and former Polygram catalogs, and part of the problem is that few anamorphic transfers have been done of these films. But cost issues aside, MGM has decided that they must do anamorphic on DVD whenever possible in the future. Among the titles on their slate for next year are special editions of The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally and The Terminator (with a new anamorphic widescreen transfer and remixed 5.1 audio), as well as Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire, Buckaroo Banzai, Mystic Pizza, The River's Edge and more. New Line has a number of titles on tap for later this year. Their new 2-disc Platinum edition of Seven is currently in production and will definitely be released sometime later in 2000. Also in development are DVD editions of Final Destination (9/26), Frequency and Love & Basketball (both planned for October). Final Destination will include test screening footage and 2 documentaries. In a quick note, I spoke with ADV reps at the show, and learned that fans of Farscape can expect episode DVD releases to be announced soon. The plan is to include some 3-4 episodes per disc, plus extras. ADV definitely knows how badly fans want Farscape done right on DVD, so they're working hard to make everyone happy. Last, but not least, Anchor Bay has a number of fun DVD titles upcoming for later in 2000. First up are dual THX special edition and limited special edition versions of Supergirl, in anamorphic widescreen (street date 8/8). The regular special edition will include a commentary, trailers, a featurette, photo galleries and storyboards. The limited edition (only 50,000 copies) will include a second disc with the never-before-seen 138-minute cut of the film and the international version as well (both in 16x9). Also coming from Anchor Bay are limited collector's tin DVD versions of several films, including Repo Man (30,000 copies, anamorphic, THX, 8/22), Halloween 5 (15,000, anamorphic & full frame, 8/22), Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (5,000 copies, anamorphic, 9/26), The Beyond (20,000 copies, anamorphic, 9/19), Hellraiser (30,000 copies, THX, anamorphic & full frame, 9/19), Evil Dead II (50,000 copies, THX, anamorphic & full frame, 8/29) and Two-Lane Blacktop (15,000 copies, anamorphic, 9/26). Each set will include the film, collector's booklets and lots of other fun items in a special tin packaging. In addition to our studio meetings and time on the show floor, we learned a number of interesting things at VSDA. The one striking thing about this year's show, was that EVERYONE was trumpeting the success of DVD. Gone are the days of retailers thinking "If I have to add DVD to my inventory..." - now everyone is asking how to add DVD to their stores effectively (the focus of a number of seminars at the show). We attended the DVD Entertainment Group's annual reception, where sales stats were given out for the first half of 2000. According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) 2.7 million players were shipped into retail in the first half of the year - more than twice the number for the same timeframe in 1999. At the current rate, CEA is expecting some 9 million players to ship by the end of 2000. The group is also expecting the number of DVD players installed in consumer homes in the U.S. to reach 13.5 million by the end of 2000, with about another 1 million DVD-capable PlayStation 2 units and 15-20 million DVD-ROM equipped computers in homes as well. DVD-Audio is finally going to get a major format launch and sales push in the 4th quarter, with both hardware and lots of software titles expected to be available. Look for this to be a huge debut, with lots of marketing dollars spent to promote the format. I spoke with representatives from one DVD content producing studio at the show (which will remain nameless) who told me that they expect to release as many as 200 DVD-Audio titles next year. In other news, DVD hardware sales for the first half of 2000 exceeded $600 million, with another $65 million in software titles sold. The DVD Entertainment Group predicts that some 230 million units of DVD software will have shipped by the end of 2000, with some single title shipments expected to pass the 3 million unit mark. Those kind of numbers bring up the question of rental pricing for DVD. And while many studio executives at the show were reluctant to acknowledge the issue, the fact remains that DVD sales in the next 6 to 12 months are going to reach a point where they begin to cannibalize VHS sales. And in my opinion, for better or worse, rental pricing and rental windows for DVD is inevitable in at least some cases. Several studios will resist this trend (like Warner and Columbia TriStar), preferring to stick with day-and-date releases to DVD. But others, notably Buena Vista, are likely to adopt the rental philosophy for DVD. At the Bits, we personally don't like the idea. But if this is the price we have to pay for the success of DVD, we feel it's a small one overall. And if we do have to wait 30-60 days after VHS to get a film on DVD... well, that means the special editions will be better, right? In any case, look for this to be a MAJOR issue in 2001. Recordable DVD was oddly brushed under the rug at VSDA this year, as the various DVD manufacturers maneuver to get their three different recordable formats to the market first. The DVD Entertainment Group's position (unofficially) is that recordable DVD is still a problem issue for the Hollywood studios in terms of copyright. As for the multiple formats, the feeling is that consumers will decide which will survive, as they did with DVD and Divx. On the issue of more DVD-18 releases, more than one studio exec I spoke with said that they prefer to forgo DVD-18 as yet. The reason? Replication of DVD-18 discs in large quantities is still troublesome, and opting for 2-disc sets instead means that you can promote the fact of a release having a "special bonus disc of extras" - consumers seem to like that more. While at the show, we were also fortunate to attend a number of other special events, including the Fox Home Video party at the House of Blues (where a packed house kicked it up with K.C. and the Sunshine Band), a special advance screening of Fox's X-Men (which isn't a home run, but is still pretty entertaining), the Warner party at Stage 16 (great food, baby!) and the DVD Festival Awards (for which your editor was a judge - The Matrix took Best of Show). Paulie Shore hosted the awards, and while I really liked the idea... most people at the show could have cared less. Prior to the awards, the ballroom was filled with hundreds of attendees, who listened to a panel of studio execs talking about DVD. But when that was over, the room cleared and maybe 50 or 60 remained for the awards ceremony. And sadly, only 3 or 4 of the many studios which won awards were there to pick them up. We got tired of hearing presenters say, "We gladly accept this award on the winner's behalf...". Oh well. Probably the coolest event at the show was the second annual Director's Panel on DVD, hosted by Entertainment Tonight's Leonard Maltin. Leonard chatted with the likes of George Romero, David Zucker, John Landis, John Waters and Rob Minkoff, who all gave DVD a major endorsement as a way of restoring and preserving films. We actually taped their discussion - if the recording is audible, we'll TRY to do a transcript of the event (just don't count on anything). Finally, the Director's Panel itself was preceded by a discussion of the latest in DVD features, which featured a special sneak peek at Artisan's forthcoming T2: Ultimate Edition DVD. The disc's producer, Van Ling, took the audience through the DVD-18 release's amazing animated menus and extras. Naturally, you get reference quality picture and sound, along with a massive amount of great special features. This set features a brute-force approach to the DVD special edition - there's nothing subtle here. But T2 is a brute-force kind of film, so it really works. I think people are going to really love the set. There's enough material to keep you busy for more than a full 24 hours. And you've got to dig the set's first-ever customized THX DVD trailer. I'm not going to spoil any more of the set's contents, but suffice it to say that fans should be very happy. T2 aside, I'm going to make a prediction right now. Look for Disney's dual Toy Story/Toy Story 2 releases (both the 2 and 3 disc sets) to be THE biggest DVD releases of the year by far. Gladiator and T2 will be big, but Toy Story is going to be the runaway best-seller. Just my two cents... That's about all the news that's fit to print from VSDA this year. You might want to check out Peter Bracke's coverage over at DVD File as well. And we'll be back tomorrow with our gallery of photos from the show. Stay tuned...! back to VSDA 2000 menu
		Site designed for 800 x 600 resolution, using 16M colors and .gif 89a animation. © 1997-2002 The Digital Bits, Inc., All Rights Reserved. billhunt@thedigitalbits.com