Warner Reveals Blu-ray Pricing Strategy

Posted July 11, 2008 02:04 PM by Josh Dreuth


Beginning in early September through sometime early next year, Warner Home Video will offer retailers certain catalog Blu-ray titles for $11 each after rebate. After retail mark-up, that should result in titles being a few dollars less than their current retail pricing. Under the program, retailers would purchase the discs at full price, but would be able to receive a cash rebate upon the sale of each unit. A few of the discounted Blu-ray titles will be 'The Fugitive', 'Enter the Dragon', 'Clockwork Orange', 'The Shining', 'The Aviator', 'The Road Warrior', and 'Swordfish'. Warner will also offer some newer titles, such as '300', 'The Departed', 'I Am Legend', 'Ocean's 13' and 'We Are Marshall', at lower prices, but they will not be discounted to the same extent as the previously mentioned titles. Lionsgate had previously discounted their early Blu-ray titles, which has led to a noticeable increase in sales. Warner is no doubt hoping to see a similar effect with their titles this important holiday season.
Source: Video Business \| Permalink \|

News comments (28 comments)

Ace028

Jul 11, 2008

Good to hear that prices are falling.

AaronSCH

Jul 11, 2008

Fox... hello is anyone there?

view_it

Jul 11, 2008

Have to be price-cut in the near future ... AND in Europe also !

Top contributor

SquidPuppet

Jul 11, 2008

Meh....you can keep the 2-3 dollars, give me decent PQ !!!!!!!!!!!

Top reviewer

Stephan.klose

Jul 11, 2008

Would be time to do that in europe too. A lot of regular titles are way over $40 here. That's why I order my stuff in the US. Even with shipping it's still a lot cheaper. Now even more so.

Top contributor

Rike255

Jul 11, 2008

Good, get some low price point BD's out there, even if only a few, will help show consumers it's affordable.

How about if you don't sacrifice picture quality for price? Atleast when your prices were high we could complain about the quality of your BD releases, but now it'd be like we get what we paid for thing.

richteer

Jul 11, 2008

I'm all for lower priced movies, but personally I'd rather see Warner on their quality. They should be ashamed of themselves for how many of their titles don't have lossless audio.

Sith

Jul 11, 2008

Most i've paid for a blu lately is $27.95, except the the batman le.....If that drops
to $25.00 whatever but quality better not suffer

Top reviewer

wnicholas76

Jul 11, 2008

About damn time! Now I can add We Are Marshall, The Shining, Enter the Dragon, The Aviator, Ocean's 13, and maybe A Clockwork Orange to my collection!

Top reviewer

Top contributor

pro-bassoonist

Jul 11, 2008

Warner were the studio (Lieberfarb) that revolutionized SDVD pricing, effectively making it a own-format. I would not read too much into this new pricing scheme but if other studios follow up and demand increases adequately it could be the beginning of what many have predicted.

Ciao,
Pro-B

King03

Jul 11, 2008

Don't automatically assume that the retailers will pass the savings down to the consumer. I think it is very likely that they will leave the prices unchanged and try to recoup some of their losses from a bad year.

Amazon might sell them cheap, but I think Best Buy is enjoying the $36 blu ray, 'cause we're all still buying them even though they're twice as expensive as they were when HD-DVD was out there.

Rainman208

Jul 11, 2008

Gee wiz who would've thought that lower prices would lead to higher sales.

I can't believe ANYONE would pay Best Buy prices unless they didn't have a credit or debit card to use online.

Warner, just keep the new release prices at or below the $19.95 mark like you did with I Am Legend and I'm sure you'll see the sales boost you want.

playblu08

Jul 11, 2008

Cool! Good goin' WB!... Now where's THE EXORCIST!

Top reviewer

ThatArtGuy

Jul 11, 2008

I just wish Warner would quit their "snapper case" mentality. Quality over Quantity (of cash) in this case.

Top reviewer

mugupo

Jul 11, 2008

WB disk isn't bad price, even the latest release like Batman begin sell for 17 bucks in Amazon, the one studio that really need to reduce their price and gave promotion is Fox, they charge 27 bucks (10 more than WB) for just about any movie, is like their movie is 2 disk, and isn't even the best transfer studio, WB is doing good job in markening. Probably Copy Disney, they did amazing job last fall for gaving out coupon for their blu-ray.

Steve-O

Jul 11, 2008

Warner did the same thing with dvd and their pricing, now they're doing the same formula with bluray, it's a good thing and will only drive other studio's to fall off their cash cow mentality.

view_it

Jul 11, 2008

YES - NEED many new films WITH WB coupon !!!
be a collector of this new area ...

Warner Bros. coupon - WE WANT YOU!!!

BluRayFANS

theprophecy247

Jul 12, 2008

always a plus

Top contributor

obriensg1

Jul 12, 2008

Start with L.A. Confidential and Pushing Daisies please!!!

EvolutionCherry

Jul 12, 2008

Sweet!

Top contributor

Wingman1977

Jul 12, 2008

Rebates=Fail.

jerkjamjAm

Jul 12, 2008

Sounds great!

DisneyLuver

Jul 12, 2008

Finally.I think this awesome news for us blu lovers.Especially if you spend alot of money on blu.Like me!!

Top contributor

ShockFly

Jul 13, 2008

Luckily the EU has recently decided to increase the "no-tax limit" for import of US goods to € 150 ($234) in stead of the current € 22 ($34). This means us Europeans can order anything from the US up to $234 without having to pay ~20% tax afterwards. This new "no-tax limit" starts December 1st this year.

Which means I can finally order Blu-ray's again for normal prices, in stead of the ~ € 25-30 ($39-47) they ask for them over here.

Dubweizer

Jul 13, 2008

Thank you, Warner Brothers.

ItsGettingHotInEER

Jul 13, 2008

If they really, really want Blu to take off, they need to lower the prices on their older products. Especially if they want people who own them on DVD to repurchase them. These titles should be $14.99 or less. The new, 1st run titles should not cost more then $24.99