Continuing its industry leadership role and unwavering commitment to the Blu-ray disc format, the only high-definition packaged media format supported by the movie, music, gaming and computing industries, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (TCFHE) announced its impressive slate of upcoming Blu-ray Disc (BD) titles due for release through the first half of 2007 in North America. Following the chart-topping sales success of Q4 2006 releases X-3: X-Men - The Last Stand and Ice Age: The Meltdown BD releases -- 2 of the top 3 BD sellers to date-- plans call for the Company to collectively release an average of 5 to 10 titles per month from Fox and MGM. The Studio's new release titles will be released day-and-date with DVD whenever possible including the recent box-office smash hit Night at the Museum and the fantasy epic Eragon coming later this year.
"We are looking forward to this pivotal year and the ultimate establishment of Blu-ray as the high-definition packaged media standard. In fact, Blu-ray sales performance surpassed HD-DVD for the first time the week of December 24 and did so by an impressive 20 per cent. What's more, by the end of the first quarter our research shows the sales gap widening to Blu-ray outselling HD DVD by a 3.5-to-1 ratio," noted Mike Dunn, President Worldwide, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. "We remain extremely encouraged by the growth in sales and player penetration and are fully committed to creating the most compelling products possible and to the continued pioneering development of BD with our partners."
Proprietary Fox Research incorporating industry data shows Blu-ray Disc eclipsing HD DVD on a weekly sales basis as noted in chart below.
Fox is one of the first studios to release titles with advanced BD-Java interactivity as well titles on dual-layer 50 GB Blu-ray Discs. MGM will release its first 50 GB dual-layer Blu-ray disc later in January with the debut of Flyboys. Fox has plans to release eight additional 50 GB BD in the first half of 2007 beginning with The Fly (1986) in April.
The studio's upcoming North American slate features a wide range of titles that will benefit from the incredible audio and video elements of the Blu-ray format. All of Fox's BD releases are aimed at the core early adopter and include:
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