Studio Canal has revealed an upcoming Blu-ray boxset for the three 'Les Bronzes' films, making it the first Blu-ray release to come from the formerly HD DVD exclusive studio. The Studio Canal library is very extensive, as they distribute titles for many of the major studios. No release date specs have been released at this time.
so heres the deal. studiocanal is owned by vivendi, and vivendi holds a 20% stake in Universal, with GE being the other 80%. so it seems as if we know that vivendi is neutral, which means that there is probably pressure on universal from vivendi to go neutral.
ya win some, ya lose some...and the ones ya lose.....well, they'll come running back sooner rather than later!
Welcome to the wonderful world of blu studio canal!!!!
All I can say is.....NICE!!!! GO BLU!!! By the way our numbers are being stumped on Amazon by HDDVD, Every go out there and tell a friend about the Buy Two get One Free BluRay sale, and the Free 8 BD movies with PS3!!! Whats driving HDDVD sales is the new Toshiba 1080i player selling for under $240!!!! We need a cheap BD player for the non-entusiast and entry level HD fans!
i from london and this is a big deal especially to places like france this ill be a big deal! But like other posts say hd-dvd is not doing very well over here! But this is great news and good to see another studio go on board hopefully more to follow
This is a big deal for overseas. As for America, it's actually nothing that will help us at all. But I'm happy for Europe! As to the comment by DAMNSAM77, price is the biggest factor for most people, so I wholeheartedly agree with you. Blu-Ray needs to lower prices to stay in this game. I want this format to win, but unless they get it going, I think both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will have a "firesale" next Christmas, and it will be the end of both formats.
Here is a Babel Fish translation of the first paragraph. (French to English)
"After the advertisement of the two boxes "integral" for the end of the year, StudioCanal comes to reveal visual box HD-DVD... and especially the existence of a Blu-Ray box ! A first for the editor who announces for the moment only this title on the format of Sony, Holidays of Mr. Bean, next innovation high definition of the editor, being expected that on HD-DVD."
Universal will not be going Blu-Ray anytime soon. GE has money in HD-DVD and that will keep Universal where they are, if you have any doubts take a look at their new UniversalHiDef.Com website which launched today. There are several things that could happen in the next weeks;
1. Warner goes HD-DVD Exclusive (they favor HD-DVD because the get money from each disc sold)
2. LionsGate goes neutral (they want their movies to sell as much as possible, going dual format would accomplish that and they haven't been happy with the sales numbers of either format by itself)
3. The Weinstein Company goes neutral (the same as LionsGate, they want as much money coming in from their high def masters as possible)
4. Disney goes neutral (Disney was the company that got Microsoft involved in developing their high def technology to begin with, Disney voted to have both VC1 and HDi be part of Blu-Ray but were overruled by Sony. Also if Warner goes HD-DVD exclusive Disney would have an interest is going neutral since Warner distributes Disney's movies overseas.)
All of those have some bit of possibility of happening based on industry talks, Universal going neutral is not going to happen anytime soon, especially not after the Paramount/DreamWorks deal. Also Vivendi has always supported Blu-Ray under Universal Music Group which they own completely. Vivendi has little control over Universal in the US now and in 2008 GE has the option to take the rest of Vivendi's stock in Universal which will take them out completely.
' if you have any doubts take a look at their new UniversalHiDef.Com website which launched today'
Yeah I noticed that too, 'HiDef', is a little vague for a company thats meant to be 110% HD-DVD exclusive and will never EVER go neautral.........yeah right!
Those are bigs words... makes them hard to swallow, and anyone who thinks that those words can't be eaten needs to sit down and have dinner with Micheal Bay.
It's wrong, Studio Canal had always been neutral...Since one year, but at this time no Blu-Ray in France...Neutral and not... before "Les Bronzés" ;-) And now (today) Studio Canal and Universal are in the same offices in France for the video :-)
If Disney is so happy with disc sales why are they offering every retailer $5 back on every Blu-Ray they sell till September 1st? That is why everyone is having such crazy special on Disney Blu-Ray titles right now. If they were selling great to begin with there would be no need for them to offer any incentive. It's almost as if they are just trying to clean out their warehouses. There is alot going on behind the scenes that no one knows about.
The catalogue of StudioCanal is huge, not only because they are the main investor for Film production in France and one of the leaders in Europe, but also thanks to their international ventures across the years.
Their catalogue is over 5000 titles strong, and aside from French/ Euro stuff you might not have heard of (like Brotherhood of the Wolves, or La Haine), you will find stuff like Arizona Dream, Air America, Angel Heart, Crash, Delicatessen, Evil Dead 2, Zorro (the Banderas ones), The 9th Gate, Bridget Jones' diary1/2, Leaving Las Vegas, The Pianist, The Interpreter, Mulholland Drive, Monthy Python, O'Brother, Scary Movie, Shaun of the Dead, Stargate, Universal Soldier, U-571 and ... Terminator 2 & Total Recall (big prods of the 80s in association with Carolco). That's only a few.
Now, let's also not go berzerk too fast. A lot of those are co-prods, and they may only have retained the rights for European distribution (if not French only distro). Some of those they have not even been involved with at all (buying the rights), so who knows exaclty what they will release where?
It is easy rickelchilango. You simply choose the movies you want from Amazon's list of eligible movies and at checkout they deduct the cheapest movie. I ordered Beerfest, Blood Diamond, Hellboy, Patriot, Road Warrior, & Swordfish for today for just $79.96!
"Disney voted to have both VC1 and HDi be part of Blu-Ray but were overruled by Sony."
Sony voted for HDi, they did not overrule anyone. If Sony had the power to overrule, HDi would be part of the BD specs, not BD-J.
Disney is about as deep into Blu-ray support as Toshiba is to HD DVD. They won't be going neutral.
rickelchilango, it might be too late, because the offers are not showing anymore....only the PS3 offer with 8 movies...but I did manage to get 12 titles for under $150!!! 4 of which are WB titles!! Take that HDDVD!!! KAAACHING!!!!!
MovieMan19 <-- why dont you cry over at your own forum...hehehe...the "so called $5 incentives" for bluray sales are simply just speculations, they arent clearing any titles and even if they were paying a $5 SPIFF for each disc, then GOOD FOR THEM!!! They need to throw money left and right to all the retailers and other studios, maybe one day, in about 10 yrs , all of Diney's "incentives" may amount to 1/10th of HDDVD's $150 million bribe to CRAPAMOUNT!!!
The fact they will be neutral will give more of a chance to show that Blu Ray discs can out sell HD
DVD counterpart.
I say bring on the chance. I like alot of the films they produce e.g Billy Elliot etc. What I want to
know though is it only the movies that they are distibutors for or the stuff they help other studios
release
Their distributor filmography is quite small compared to production:
Am really glad to hear this (I heard about it over at the forums @ AnimeOnBlu-Ray.com just a few minutes ago )
Even though I'm not sure that there's much I'd want to import from Studio Canal atm assuming they don't code their titles Region B only, I'm glad to hear that more studios are showing support for a clearly winning format
I wish I would have gotten my paycheque earlier this week, on the other hand. I would probably have liked to take advantage of Amazon.com's 2 for 1 sales
Oh well, at least I can look forward to likely getting some more new and upcoming anime titles on BD
Sorry folks. This isn't even news. Someone just found a joint venture BD title on the website and called it "news"
Do a Google news check on Studio Canal and you'll see that TODAY they just signed a new contract with Universal Pictures extending them to 2010. This will likely be the only BD disc you'll see from SC in the near future.
sadly ive come to the same conclusion. it kinda does look like some sort of deal between a blu ray studio and studio canal for some over seas distribution. what movie is it do you know? this being listed as news this early when the details are unknown will probably spoil a few peoples hopes if it happens to be nothing. i hope its more than it seems. im trying to find the universal bit but i cant find it. do you have a link to the article?
Studio Canal has revealed an upcoming Blu-ray boxset for the three 'Les Bronzes' films, making it the first Blu-ray release to come from the formerly HD DVD exclusive studio. The Studio Canal library is very extensive, as they distribute titles for many of the major studios. No release date specs have been released at this time. 
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