Here are the new Blu-ray releases for April 1, 2008:
10.5 Apocalypse: The Complete Miniseries
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Artie Lange’s Beer League
Behind The Yellow Line
Blackbeard
Category 7: The End of the World
Coyote Ugly
The Curse Of King Tut’s Tomb: The Complete Miniseries
Hidalgo
The Last Sentinel
Unbreakable
Via EngadgetHD
Warner Home Video today announced that The Bucket List and V for Vendetta will be released on Blu-ray. On May 20th, Blu-ray player owners will be treated to The Wachowski’s V for Vendetta while The Bucket List will have to wait until June 10th. Still no news on the Wachowski’s Matrix trilogy.
Extras on the The Bucket List Blu-ray include “Writing the Bucket List”, a John Mayer music video, interviews with the stars, interactive trivia and more.
Extras for the V for Vendetta Blu-ray haven’t been announced but it’s safe to assume that the following features that were part of the HD DVD version will be included in the Blu-ray version. Those features included commentary, four featurettes, the Saturday Night Live digital short, Cat Power montage, and theatrical trailers.
The cult classic Point Break is heading to a Blu-ray player near you on July 1, 2008. The movie, starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze was a modest hit during its 1991 theatrical release (pulling in $80 million worldwide) but gained an incredible amount of fans with its DVD release. In fact, Point Break is one of Fox’s biggest catalog sellers.
The Blu-ray version will include the same extras found on the DVD edition released in 2006, including four making-of featurettes, eight deleted scenes and a photo gallery.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Spyglass Entertainment have announced that April 29th is when 27 Dresses will be released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc.
27 Dresses stars Emmy Award-winner Katherine Heigl as Jane, an idealistic romantic who always puts others before herself… and she’s got 27 dresses to prove it. However, as Jane’s worst nightmare unfolds before for her eyes, she begins to re-evaluate her “always a bridesmaid†lifestyle and finally puts herself first in line for love.
From the screenwriter of The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses also stars James Marsden, Edward Burns, Malin Akerman and Judy Greer and is directed by Anne Fletcher.
Blu-Ray Disc Specs: The 27 Dresses BD release will be authored in BD-Java with AVC (MPEG 4 compression) on a dual-layer 50 GB disc with English 5.1 DTS HD Lossless Master Audio and French Dolby Surround, along with Spanish, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin and French subtitles.
Blu-ray Disc sales have surpassed the 9 million mark, thanks in part to No Country for Old Men. In the first 11 weeks of the year, 3 million Blu-ray movies were sold. Adding the 6 million previously sold since the format launch in mid 2006 brings our total to 9 million, well on its way to hit 15 million by the end of this year.
On average, around 200,000 – 300,000 Blu-ray movies are sold weekly. This number spiked up to 319,000, driven by the release of No Country For Old Men, which sold 68,000 units the week ending March 16, double that of the next closest title: Hitman.
According to Strategy Analytics, Blu-ray players will be in 29.4 million homes worldwide by the end of 2008. According to, “Blu-ray Devices: Forecasting Sales and Ownership,” Sony’s PS3 games console will continue to drive the Blu-ray market until 2009, after which stand-alone Blu-ray players will become dominant. By 2012 more than 132 million homes worldwide will own at least one Blu-ray device.
“HD-DVD’s withdrawal leaves the way open for Blu-ray to become a major revenue earner for technology vendors and content owners alike,” says David Mercer, Principal Analyst. “The 265 million homes that will own an HDTV by 2012, and Hollywood’s need for a new growth engine, represent huge incentives for the industry to coordinate marketing activities and demonstrate unified support for the successor to DVD.”
 No surprises as No Country for Old Men, winner of the Best Picture Oscar, took the number one spot on the charts. Rounding out the top ten are two HD DVDs… perhaps the last time they’ll be on the list.
WWE Home Video has announced that Wrestlemania XXIV will be the company’s first ever Blu-ray release. Scheduled for release on May 20, day-and-date with the DVD version, Wrestlemania XXIV will feature around 10 matches including the following:
Triple Threat match for the WWE Championship: Randy Orton vs. Triple H vs. John Cena
World Heavyweight Championship: Edge vs. The Undertaker
Money in the Bank ladder match: Mr. Kennedy vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Chris Jericho vs. Carlito vs. Montel Vontavious Porter vs. CM Punk vs. John Morrison
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. The Big Show (Yes, Floyd Mayweather, Jr… the boxer. He apparently received $20 million for the match)
More details are expected soon. We’ll keep you posted.
Fox Home Entertainment has announced they will bring the 1966 classic Batman: The Movie to Blu-ray on July 1, 2008. The movie will be presented in 1080p with 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio.
Extras include: commentary by actors Adam West and Burt Ward, commentary by screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr., isolated score track, pop-up trivia, original teaser and theatrical trailers, galleries and much more.
There will also be a limited edition released with only 5,000 copies made which will include a 1/18th scale Batmobile from Hot Wheels.
Just a heads up to let you all know that the new Sony PlayStation 3 firmware, version 2.20, launched last night. As mentioned before, the new update adds Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0 (BD-LIVE) support. All you have to do is go to the System Update section of the PS3 menu and the download will start. It should take no more than 10 minutes. That’s all you have to do. You now have a 2.0 Blu-ray player and are ready to take advantage of new Blu-ray features.
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