Paramount Dropping Future HD-DVD Releases, DreamWorks Stuck

Boston (dbTechno) - The high-definition format war is clearly over, with Blu-ray being the clear cut winner. Some studios though, including DreamWorks Animation and Paramount, are still supporting HD-DVD, for now. Paramount has announced that they have dropped many big HD-DVD releases.

According to reports, the March 4 releases of Into the Wild, and Things We Lost in the Fire will be the last releases for Paramount on HD DVD.

Paramount has reportedly dropped the releases of Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, as well as the upcoming There Will Be Blood.

One question mark is in regards to Bee Movie from DreamWorks Animation. DreamWorks Animation is still stuck under an exclusivity deal with Toshiba and the HD-DVD format which they have yet to get out of.

The head of DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg, stated “We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through.”

It should be interesting to see if the planned March 11 release of Bee Movie actually goes through on HD-DVD, or if it is just dropped entirely.

It does seem very likely that all of these films will be coming to Blu-ray, much sooner rather than later, as Paramount is reportedly working out a release schedule for Blu-ray movies, how about a release of Transformers on Blu-ray?!