Afternoon, folks! We've got a couple good news items to report for you today…
First, our friends over at Shout! Factory have announced a terrific batch of new Scream Factory titles coming on Blu-ray and DVD in 2013. Some have already been revealed but there are great new titles as well. Look for The Island and Death Valley on 12/11, Deadly Blessing on 1/22, The Nest, Prison and a TerrorVision/The Video Dead double feature on 2/19, and From Beyond and Phantasm II in March (street date TBA). And here’s the great news: There are LOTS more great titles coming later in 2013 (street date TBD) including Vampire Lovers, Town that Dreaded Sundown/The Evictors, The Incredible Melting Man, X-ray (aka Hospital Massacre), Schizoid, The Godsend, Scanners II, Scanners III, The Horror Show, The Vagrant, The Fog, The Howling, Lifeforce, Night of the Comet, The Burning and Day of the Dead! Watch for more details on those TBD titles in the weeks ahead.
Also, here’s something interesting: As we’ve reported previously, Sony is gearing up to start selling 4K Ultra HDTVs in 2013 and the company is now promising that it will make free Sony 4K theatrical films available for viewing on them as a way of solving the “chicken and egg” content problem. Presumably these would be delivered digitally but specific details haven’t yet been revealed. More here at ars technica.
In other news, this was interesting: Paramount Pictures’ EVP of Operations Mark Christiansen told theatre owners at the Showeast conference recently that they should make the switch to digital projection as soon as possible because the various manufacturers of physical film stock are gradually stopping production. The implication is that at some point in the near future, digital will be the only option for film production and distribution. Interesting. More here at Digital Trends.
Finally today, a quick shout out: As it happens, our friend Guido Henkel of DVD Review is also a video game producer. He’s just started a new Kickstarter to fund his latest game project – an RPG called Thorvalla! Do check it out.
Here's a look at a couple of those upcoming Shout!/Scream BD titles, as well as the 2D Blu-ray of Sony’s Hotel Transylvania (due 1/29)...
All right, we’ll probably still check in regularly over the next few days, but we know a lot of your are traveling to visit family for the Thanksgiving holiday. So from all of us here at The Digital Bits, we’d like to wish you and yours safe travels and a wonderful holiday!
Stay tuned!
- Bill Hunt