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Apple announces Lionsgate Movies now in the iTunes Store
Apple today announced the availability of movies from the Lionsgate studio in the iTunes Store. Blockbusters like Terminator 2, LA Story and Basic Instinct are available today, with more than 150 titles on their way by the end of the month. Unfortunately, this looks like another Paramount score - unless those movies still en route are new releases, it feels a lot more like Lionsgate is still wearing the bright orange floaties while dabbling their toes on the kiddie side of the pool, instead of waking up and actually embracing the future.
Lionsgate joins Xbox 360 Video Marketplace
Lionsgate will soon join fellow movie distributors on the Xbox Live Video Marketplace, bringing targeted content to Xbox 360 gamers. "The Xbox gamer is the same moviegoer who wants to watch Saw III or Crank," remarked executive VP Jon Ferro. Ah yes, torture and meth labs ... you've got us all figured out, don't you, Mr. Ferro?Other Lionsgate titles destined for XBLVM: An American Haunting, Blair Witch Project, The Descent, Employee of the Month, Hard Candy, Ninth Gate, The Punisher, Requiem for a Dream, See No Evil, and Stir of Echoes.See also: Xbox 360 video download service succeeding, others failing
Lionsgate announces upcoming Blu-ray titles
We've seen various slates of HD DVD / Blu-ray titles come out today, and heading up the rear of the release lists is none other than Lionsgate. While a Lionsgate film (The Descent) has caused quite a bit of fuss lately, the studio is hoping to create some positive PR noise by announcing that 40 BD titles should be hitting shelves with its name on it during this year, starting with Crank. It also highlighted the Golden Globe-winning TV series Weeds would be making its way to Blu-ray disc, as well as Ultimate Avengers I and II on the animation side. If you're anxious to get a few more Lionsgate productions in your collection, Employee of the Month is landing on January 16th, while the sure-to-be-successful Saw III hits on the 23rd. Overall, Lionsgate's 2007 list is far from spectacular, but it's got a bit of everything mixed in, including one of our personal favorites: Reservoir Dogs on February 6th. Click on through to see the first 21 titles to be released from Lionsgate on Blu-ray disc this year.
BitTorrent strikes a deal with Hollywood
You might consider BitTorrent to be the discerning pirate's choice when it comes to obtaining everything from movies to software. Well, it's about to go mainstream, given that BitTorrent, Inc. announced a partnership with pretty much everyone in Hollywood, including 20th Century Fox, G4, Lions Gate, MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures and plenty others. This isn't the first time that the establishment has saddled up with everyone's favorite file sharing company, although we're not exactly sure what the effects were on the seedy underground of the internets, nor what new revenue Warner Bros. saw from that deal. Still, this new unnamed service's offerings and prices will be made available in February 2007, which will be when the BitTorrent's new online retail marketplace opens for business.[Thanks, Alan]
Apple, Hollywood go toe-to-toe on movie downloads
Not surprisingly, Apple is facing heat from Hollywood companies that want to sell their movies on iTunes, but don't want to play by all of Apple's rules. The big issue is whether or not Apple will restrict the number of devices that can play a film bought from iTunes; Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros. are rightfully concerned with rampant digital piracy and how iTunes might help inadvertently contribute to that. Of course, Hollywood could go the Wal-Mart or Amazon Unbox route if Apple won't back down, but then those studios would miss out on some of that big Apple halo action. Still, if Disney and the soon-to-be-added Lions Gate are already at the iTunes party, it seems unlikely that the rest of Hollywood could stay away much longer. [Via Apple Insider]
Lionsgate delays third round of Blu-ray titles
Lionsgate wouldn't be representing Blu-ray properly if it didn't delay at least some of their up-coming titles. Look at the whole history of the format, with all the delays of players, pushed back movies, bumped release dates and now Lionsgate is getting in on the action by delaying their titles that was suppose to hit October 17 but instead have been pushed back till 'early 2007.' Hopefully this means the studio is ditching the MPEG-2 codec and instead retrofitting these discs with VC-1 encoding. We don't know for sure why but let's just say we are more then a little disappointed that we can't peep Sylvester Stallone in First Blood as soon as we thought we could.
Reservoir Dogs coming to Blu-ray this fall
This is an odd pick for the format considering the treatment of the character Mr. Blue, but Reservoir Dogs will be making the jump to Blu-ray at the same time the 15th anniversary edition is released October 24th. Director Quentin Tarantino's 1991 Sundance hit and cult favorite will be released by Lionsgate on standard DVD in the Gas Can Edition with loads of extras including 6.1 DTS-ES and 5.1 Dolby Surround audio tracks plus loads of featurettes, other than the soundtracks and requisite 1080p transfer the details of the Blu-ray release are unknown.
Want HD DVD to gain more studio support? Sign these petitions
Petitions can be a very powerful tool. If enough of the target audience signs one, things can happen. That is exactly what some people are trying to do with these following petitions. They are designed to show studios that they want to view their libraries of titles on HD DVDs. If these reach enough people, they might just do the trick. We do have to note that HDBeat is not taking any specific side on this war though (I have however), but if this is your kind of thing, you might want to go sign your John Hancock - digitally that is.Studio Petitions Lions Gate Fox Disney MGM Pictures
Third round of Blu-ray titles coming from Lionsgate
Lionsgate isn't done with Blu-ray yet. The studio have already announced two waves of their titles and now they have just announced that on October 17, we are going to see some of the studios top titles. American Psycho, First Blood, Saw II and Young Guns are all coming out on 1080p discs with Dolby Digital Surround EX and DTS-HD surround tracks. We have to be honest though, we had no idea that First Blood could be a top title. Maybe a bit of 1080p and great surround sound will make it watchable. The titles are going to retail for $29.99.
Lionsgate announces more Blu-ray titles
The number of Blu-ray titles and quality of those titles have left some Blu-ray fanboys disappointed. It's Lionsgate's turn to announce more titles which will be available August 22nd. The latest additions will have special features which were absent in Lionsgate's first batch, but still no HD features. They will be single layer discs and have multiple audio formats including Dolby Digital EX Surround and DTS HD High Resolution ES. No ground breaking titles here, but definitely some classics like Total Recall.The titles include Total Recall Stir of Echoes Stargate The Devil's Rejects
Lionsgate delays Blu-ray movies
Just as our own Ben was lauding the release of top tier titles like Best Picture winner Crash on Blu-ray, Lionsgate turns around and delays all of it's Blu-ray releases. The movies were scheduled to be released on May 23 along with the offerings from Sony Pictures, but instead will be on hold until June when Samsung is releasing their first Blu-ray player.Confirmed Lionsgate Blu-ray titles: Lord of War, The Punisher, Devil's Rejects, Saw, T2: Judgment Day, Reservoir Dogs, Total Recall, Dune, Rambo: First Blood, See No EvilThe second wave of titles they had previously announced for June are now on hold indefinitely. This is probably to be expected after the Samsung delay became official, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow.
Seven major studios line up to sell movies online
We have no idea why they chose today to do it, but today seven major movie studios announced they'll be selling movies online through Movielink and CinemaNow. Warner Bros, Universal, Sony, Paramount, Fox, and MGM will all be distributing first-run titles online -- definitely something they've never done before -- through Movielink for between 20 and 30 bones (way, way too much if you ask us), with older movies going for between $10 and $20. Lionsgate (and Sony) also announced distribution through CinemaNow. Really this was only a matter of time -- for these guys it was either sell these things online DRMed all to hell for way too much money (see above), go the subscription route (like Vongo, for example -- not likely) or continue whining without any justification whatsoever about pirates stealing movies in the Internet. At least now they can say they've legitimately offered their digital content up online (hey, you can even make a DVD backup for use only on Movielink-authorized computers), even though they still can't account for the artificial demand they try to create by releasing movies for purchase months after the films have gone out of theater.[Thanks, Phil]
Lionsgate annonces 10 more Blu-Ray titles
We told you there would be more titles to follow! We didn't expect it to be this soon, but we sure are glad it did and I am sure the next few days there will many more. Lionsgate is bringing some great titles to the party including: Lord Of War and The Punisher. In the months to follow they will release more including: Reservoir Dogs, Total Recall, and Stargate. The newer movies will have a suggested price of $40 and $30 for older titles. I am a little disappointed to see the suggested retail price, I had hoped they wouldn't cost that much more than DVDs, but I suppose that was just wishful thinking. I can see I will have to wait some time before I start to replace my DVD collection. I wonder when Netflix will start to let me add them to my queue?[via Zatz Not Funny]