Michael Bay speaks out against HD DVD-only choice
By Daniel Frankel of Variety -- Video Business,08/22/2007
AUG. 22 | FROM VARIETY: The decision by Paramount Home Entertainment and DreamWorks Animation to exclusively back HD DVD may have garnered the studios financial incentives valued at a reported $150 million, but it seems to have irked at least one high-profile filmmaker in the process."No Transformers 2 for me!" wrote helmer Michael Bay in a post on his personal Web forum (headline: "Paramount pisses me off!") that was widely circulated Tuesday. "I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks!"
By the end of the day, however, Bay had softened his stance after speaking to Par brass and taken down his original post, replacing it with the following:
"Last night at dinner I was having dinner with three Blu-ray owners, they were pissed about no Transformers Blu-ray and I drank the Kool-Aid hook, line and sinker. So at 1:30 in the morning I posted -- nothing good ever comes out of early a.m. posts mind you -- I overreacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard.
"As a director, I'm all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard first-hand people upset about a corporate decision.
"So today I saw 300 on HD, it rocks!
"So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!"
Read the full story on Variety.com.
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| Submitted by: | kimirai 8/25/2007 5:48:06 PM PT |
| Location: | toronto canada |
| Occupation: | audio video sales associate |
I think this kind of thing is what is making both formats suffer in sales of the stand alone dvd players. People want to know they are not just buying the next beta machines. That's why I bought a playstation 3 and not a sony blu ray player which I could get at cost at my store that where I work. I know at least I still will have a game system for sometime.
| Submitted by: | Talkstr8t (talkstr8t@gmail.com) 8/22/2007 8:57:00 PM PT |
I wonder how much of the $150M incentive Paramount took to go HD DVD exclusive is now in Michael Bay's next contract to get him to stifle his initial (and true) feelings about this...
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