Paramount done with HD DVD next week
By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 2/28/2008
FEB. 28 | The March 4 releases Into the Wild and Things We Lost in the Fire will be Paramount Home Entertainment’s last titles in the HD DVD format, the studio confirmed.
The studio pulled the plug on the HD DVD versions of other titles that had been announced for the format, including DreamWorks Animation’s Bee Movie, due March 11, and Sweeney Todd, due April 1. Their standard DVD versions will come out as planned.
Paramount also has slated There Will Be Blood, starring Oscar-winning Daniel Day-Lewis, for standard DVD release on April 8. Online retail sites last week also listed the title as available in HD DVD, but that information has since been taken down.
The studio has not yet said what its first Blu-ray Disc releases will be.
Paramount last week said it would stop producing titles in HD DVD and switch to Blu-ray, after Toshiba announced its decision to stop marketing HD DVD hardware.
Earlier this week, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg appeared committed to HD DVD, saying that what the studio would do about Bee Movie was Toshiba’s call. “We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through,” he said.
