The director behind films such as Bad Boys and The Transformers is disappointed by Paramount’s decision to drop support for Blu-ray. On a post on Michael Bay’s personal web forum titled "Paramount pisses me off!", he states:
"I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me!"
It appears the researchers at Paramount who thought the $150M was a good deal didn’t take into account that they would lose not one but TWO of their biggest stars: Bay AND Spielberg.
A speculation in the Paramount deal was that films directed by Steven Spielberg would not be a HD DVD exclusive, and would be distributed on both formats. At the time, it was not apparent if Spielberg was a fan of Blu-ray, but clarification received by High Def Digest suggests that the only Spielberg film coming out in high definition will be solely on one format: ‘Encounters of the Third Kind’ on Blu-ray.
All of this hustle against HD DVD started when the HD DVD promo group listed a few high profile Spielberg titles as "coming soon" to the format. War of the Worlds, all that stuff.
The group was asked politely, with the gentle mention of a lawsuit, to issue a public apology to Mr. Spielberg. They soon retracted the titles from the release schedule.
High Def Digest contacted Marvin Levy, a Spielberg spokesman, regarding the announcement. He said the following:
"It was important to Steven that if any of his films were to be released [first] on high-definition, that it would be a classic. Steven is big supporter of Blu-ray, and chose ‘Close Encounters’ to be the first of his films on either format."
Ironically, Universal, a movie studio that has always been loyal to HD DVD, is seriously considering releasing movies on Blu-ray as well, given the success of Sony’s format over the Toshiba’s. It makes Paramount’s decision even more puzzling.
More Blu-ray news soon.
Sources: Shoot for the Edit | High Def Digest