Audio Video News

HD DVDs are going to continue to trickle into stores over the next few months from Warner and Universal in particular, and French distributor Studiocanal has announced it will release 20 movies on the format this year. There's a surprising lack of coordination on the part of studios and retailers regarding the release dates of the titles.

At the end of last week reports surfaced that this coming Tuesday (5/2) will see Warner Home Video release Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and Swordfish on HD DVD, followed on 5/9 by the Denzel Washington vehicle Training Day and the first DVD/HD DVD hybrid disc, none other than Rumor Has It with Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner. Suggested retail on the Rumor hybrid is $39.99, but the street price is certain to be lower. It's been reported that this disc will be a "combination disc" with a dual-layer DVD on one side and dual-layer, 30GB HD DVD on the other.

Although Goodfellas and Swordfish are to appear in stores two days from now, there was no confirmation on Warner's web site: following the link to Warner's high-def site (www.wbhidef.com) from an insert in one of Warner's HD DVDs brought me to a page that showed only the already released Last Samurai, Phantom of the Opera and Million Dollar Baby. Zero info on any upcoming titles. Although Amazon showed both Goodfellas and Training Day available for preorder (and at better prices), neither BestBuy.com or Walmart.com had either title available for preorder. Toshiba's HD DVD PR site shows a lot of cool stuff coming from Warner, including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Batman Begins, and The Matrix, but so far no dates.

Preorders are being taken for Universal's 2005 remake of Assault on Precinct 13, Ron Howard's Cinderella Man, and Sam Mendes' Jarhead for a 5/9 release date. Other Universal titles available for preorder and scheduled for release on 5/23 are Bourne Supremacy, Chronicles of Riddick, U-571 and Van Helsing.

Searching manually by month at Universal home video's web site I also uncovered scheduled HD DVD releases for June of Happy Gilmore (and thank heavens for that, because I can't imagine how much funnier that will be in HD), and the second HD DVD movie released starring Dwayne Johnson, The Rundown. You might know Dwayne by his other handle, The Rock, and chalk up two HD DVD appearances for the big boy: Doom is already in stores. For July Universal will unveil the excellent, Texas high school football chronicle Friday Night Lights, and Pitch Black, the first and far superior Vin Diesel as Riddick sci-fi flick.

Studiocanal made good on its CES 2006 promise of supporting HD DVD, announcing 20 titles it plans to release on the next-gen format late this year for release in Europe. Among the titles were some movies I'd like to see released here on HD DVD sooner rather than later, including David Lynch's masterpieces Mulholland Drive and the Elephant Man, The Graduate, The Deer Hunter, Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, and The Pianist.

Magnolia Home Entertainment will be distributing the first wave of HD DVD titles from Mark Cuban's HDNet and HDNet Movies channels, scheduled to hit stores in May. The first titles will be the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Steven Soderbergh's Bubble, The War Within, The Shuttle Discovery's Historic Mission, and, of course, the Howard Stern-approved Bikini Destinations.

In another couple of months, HD DVD might look like a real format!