For pre-1980s material, let's say, it seems to me that Blu-ray has generally been a good thing for small labels but a big failure for the business model of the big studios, built during the more profitable precedent of the DVD-boom era. And consistent with the pattern established in that era, Universal has been trailing far behind the other big studios in releasing this material on blu, even as low as the bar has been set by Warner, Fox, etc. They're not even close. Even with something like Hitchcock, we're coming up on a year now waiting for the announcement of the second of their Hitchcock blu titles, again, five years into the format.zedz wrote:I'm pretty sure I'm sure I'm sure. Unless the entire format goes south (which is entirely possible), I bet we'll see several milkings of those particular titles before we see any of Universal's rarer / more interesting black and white holdings make Blu.Gregory wrote:Are you sure you're sure? What are they waiting for? Blu-ray has been around for five years now and we haven't even seen the first releases of a lot of older films like these that are held by the big studios and were huge money-spinners on earlier formats.zedz wrote:I'm sure you'll have the chance to buy [The restorations put out in recent years on their various Legacy editions (DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, THE MUMMY, THE WOLF MAN] five or six times on BluRay over the next ten years.
What's especially discouraging is that the '30s monster films are not only longstanding major earners, they're horror films, and horror fans are especially reliable when it comes to buying each new upgrade. So the fact that Universal hasn't even done the first blu releases of Frankenstein et al. seems like an obvious case of squandering the most bankable potential sales they have. We should have already been on the second releases of these films by now, 2-disc sets with the sequels included.
But hey, there's still time for them to announce 80th anniversary Blu-ray editions in time for Halloween.