This past Friday, while Americans were recovering from their Thanksgiving celebrations (or running to stores on bargain-hunting expeditions!), a website based in Madrid, Spain called "ZonaDVD.com"
posted word (in Spanish, naturally...here's
an English translation) about upcoming high-def Blu-ray Disc releases from Warner Bros for 2010. The list is mainly film-based items, including the original
Clash of the Titans movie starring Harry Hamlin (
L.A. Law), which was indeed announced today for release in the USA on March 2nd (timed to tie in with the March 26th theatrical debut of the new remake). Items such as that one on ZonaDVD's report certainly give it credibility, so it's easy to take the entire list at face value, even though ZonaDVD.com includes a disclaimer that the titles listed have mostly NOT been officially announced by the studio.
With the last part in mind, we wanted to directly double-check with Warner Home Video when the list turned up mentions for Blu-ray
Season 1 sets of such classic, hugely popular shows as
Friends and
The West Wing. After all, there have been rumors since 2006 for high-def releases (even in the now-defunct HD-DVD format!) of both
The West Wing and
Friends...the latter story pretty much being the first high-def article we ever seriously posted here, back in January 2006. Since then there have been other "sightings" of such gossip, which has kept hope alive for 1080p releases of these two shows...both of which are listed by IMDB.com as having been shot on film (and therefore able to make a nice clean jump to high-def, unlike shows that were originally shot on video, or even just had special effects done on video). There was even word from the studio, about a year ago, that they had begun looking into making such releases.
In September 2008, a
a trade journal report in
Video Business magazine, speaking about Warner's plans for Blu-ray releases of newer TV shows (
Chuck, Pushing Daisies, etc.), also passed along that "
...Warner is circling catalog for the first time and is eyeing an upcoming Blu-ray release for Friends." That statement was backed up by a quote from a Vice President at the studio, saying that "
We think there is a market there, and we are actively looking at our catalog...There are great series we can go back to, and Friends is one of them." So with that year-old report in our minds, we eyed these new rumors from ZonaDVD as being entirely possible, but still checked in this morning with the folks at Warner Home Video to see if they were actually coming to pass.
However, we quickly received a response from an executive at the studio, who informs us that it's not accurate to say that there are any 2010 plans at this time. We were told, "
These have been discussed, but we're still looking at our TV BD Catalog release plans." We're informed that no dates have been set, for either the USA or anywhere else on the globe. It was made clear that for big titles like these, Warner would certainly schedule them to street worldwide at the same time, so it's not even a matter of those titles coming out only in Europe in 2010, either. A decision to release them might still possibly come later on, though, according to the reply we were sent: "
Not saying it won’t happen some day. Just that we don’t have (these)
planned for 2010 at this point."
We honestly hate to have to pass that info along, of course...we would much rather tell everybody that something IS coming out, then to tell you that it isn't. However, we felt that it's important to get the correct news out there for you to be aware of, and as soon as possible. Our thanks to our friends at Blu-ray.com, who
relayed ZonaDVD's report this morning, as well as to all of our readers who made sure we were aware of their post, and Zona's. Stay tuned, and if these programs ever DO get announced for Blu-ray Disc release, we'll be certain to let you know!
