September 24
Hooray for Blu-ray?
20th Century Fox is very excited about Blu-ray. And it wants all of us to be very excited about Blu-ray too. Why? Well, it doesn’t exactly hurt the studio’s bottom line when we all dash out and buy those players and lots of discs.
To help their cause Fox decided to invite MSN and a few other select outlets along to various locations in LA to preview some of their upcoming titles and bring out some of the creative types working on the various discs to sing their praises.
First up? X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner and X-Men Origins: Wolverine director Gavin Hood, who showed off some of the shiny new features that the film’s Blu-ray package will offer.
Chief among them was the Live Lookup idea – basically, a way to access the IMDB – yes, they’re aiming for quality control to keep the number of errors the site often brings up in actors’ credits down – live from the disc as you watch the film so you can see what they’ve done and, more importantly, stay updated on what they’re doing. It’s perfect for that endlessly nagging relative who can help asking, “Who are they? What have I seen them in?” every time you watch a film with them. And that’s just the tip of the interactivity iceberg – there are scavenger hunts, indexes and all manner of games coming too on other titles.
Donner in particular was quick to praise the format as perfect for big movies like Wolverine. “In our heads we're always geared for a movie theatre. And that's why we like Blu-ray, because you get the same experience as in a cinema and we're thrilled about that.”
But if you want the true champion of the format, you need to talk to Baz Luhrmann, who preached the gospel of the ‘ray to us. Bubbling over with energy at every moment, Luhrmann is a seemingly perfect fit for the audio-visual experience of the format, given his attention to detail on the look and sound of his movies.
He’ll be bringing us Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge on Blu-ray (“2010, though Fox is graciously giving me all the time I need to work on the films,” he laughs) and was only too happy to sing its praises.
“It's absolutely the most perfect format right now for my films. The ability to change things and the look is ideal.”
Yes. Luhrmann fans will be able to enjoy his films next year, but Fight Club fans won’t have to wait as long – there’s a brand new, 10th anniversary release arriving by the end of the year, complete with all the features of the two-disc set and a host of new ones – including a sound studio that lets you play with several scenes to hear how the unique audio treatments worked on the movie.
It was certainly impressive, and it sounds like there are plenty of treats on their way down the pipeline…
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