Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group is finally bursting onto the 3D Blu-ray scene by releasing six titles, more than any other studio thus far and all for retail stores.
The six titles to debut on Nov. 16 are “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” “Clash of the Titans,” “The Polar Express” and three IMAX documentaries, “IMAX Deep Sea 3D,” “IMAX Under the Sea 3D,” and “IMAX Space Station 3D.”
“This is an exciting time in the industry and we are thrilled to be a part of this evolution in home entertainment,” said Dorinda Marticorena, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and High Definition.
Each is priced at $44.95, with “Cats & Dogs” and “Clash of the Titans” as combo packs including the 3D, 2D and digital copy of the movies. “The Polar Express” the three IMAX films will include 3D and 2D versions of each film.
“The Polar Express,” one of the first of the recent wave of theatrical 3D films to drive the resurgence of 3D, was previously released on disc in anaglyph 3D (with cardboard glasses and magenta and blue lenses), but has now been upgraded to stereoscopic full HiDef 3D with 1080p resolution for each eye.
Thus far only Sony has released a couple 3D Blu-ray titles to retail stores (Disney has announced “A Christmas Carol” for November), with others introducing titles such as “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” bundled exclusively with the purchase of 3D Blu-ray players and 3D TVs. Fox’s 3D Blu-ray of “Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” is also only available with the purchase of hardware but the studio took an interesting alternate route by introducing an anaglyph version of DVD next Tuesday, Sept. 21.
“As sales of Blu-ray 3D hardware increase during the holidays, we wanted to ensure that consumers have access to a diverse selection of 3D content, not attached to an exclusive bundle…,” Marticorena said. “Consumers can expect to see more 3D movies and games coming to Home 3D over the next few months.”
— By Scott Hettrick