Posted Mon Apr 2, 2007 at 09:01 PM PDT by
Warner Home Entertainment has announced they will bring Clint Eastwood's 'Letters from Iwo Jima' to Blu-ray and HD DVD on May 22, the same date as Paramount Home Entertainment's next-gen releases of the director's companion piece, 'Flags of Our Fathers.'
'Letters from Iwo Jima' was filmed back-to-back with Eastwood's other 2007 epic war film, 'Flags of Our Fathers,' with the pair meant to reflect two sides of the same conflict. Of the two films, 'Iwo Jima' eventually emerged as the critical favorite, earning a host of year-end awards as well as four Oscar nominations, including nods for Best Director and Best Picture.
Now viewers will have the chance to compare and contrast both films on the two next-gen formats. Though Warner has not divulged full specs, the 'Iwo Jima' Blu-ray and HD DVD discs will include dual 1080p/VC-1 encodes and -- in a first for the studio -- Dolby TrueHD tracks on both versions.
Warner has set a $34.95 list price for the Blu-ray edition, and $39.95 for the HD DVD edition, which will be an HD DVD/DVD combo release.
'Iwo Jima' is also notable for being a Warner/DreamWorks co-production (Paramount similarly teamed with the studio for 'Flags'). The release of 'Iwo Jima' now marks the third DreamWorks title set to hit high-def, following both 'Flags of our Fathers' and 'Dreamgirls,' which kicks off the studio's next-gen support on May 1.
Despite their considerable critical cache, both 'Letters from Iwo Jima' and 'Flags of Our Fathers' may find it a challenge competing for consumer dollars on May 22, as the day is fast shaping up to be the biggest ever in next-gen history. Other high-profile titles due to hit stores include both of Disney's 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films, Warner's dual 'Matrix' trilogy box sets, and Paramount's stand-alone re-issues of all three 'Mission: Impossible' films . Whew!
Full specs for 'Letters from Iwo Jima' are expected in the coming days, but in the meantime we've added new listings for both versions to our Blu-ray Release Schedule and our HD DVD Release Schedule, under May 22.
We've also set up dedicated threads for the titles in our Forums area -- click the following links to discuss the 'Letters from Iwo Jima' HD DVD release and the 'Letters from Iwo Jima' Blu-ray release.
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