Tuesday 5 June 2012

Articles

Christopher Nolan Won’t Make a Howard Hughes Film, But He Still Wants To Direct a Bond Movie
by Russ Fischer (from /Film)

The headline pretty much covers it, except for this tidbit:

Nolan does tell Empire that he met with producers about Bond, but that any film with his name on it “would have to be the right situation and the right time in their cycle of things.” Precisely what “the right situation” is can be open to question, but since part of Nolan’s working method is exerting total control, he might want to cast his own Bond. Given how much effort EON puts into choosing and marketing their Bond, that could be the one and only stumbling block that matters.

Really need to get round to reading that Empire -- it has a huge feature (really, a set of features) on The Dark Knight Rises.


Forecast: Online Demand For Movies, TV Shows Will Top DVD Sales This Year
by Daniel Frankel (from paidContent)

It's a bleak and depressing headline, sure -- online streamed or downloaded video content mostly doesn't have the quality of DVD, and stuff that claims to be HD is nowhere near as good as Blu-ray. Sure, it's fine for the latest trashy blockbuster, even more so for the average viewer; but for those who care about quality and a film-like experience, it's rubbish.

But the news in the article itself is much more heartening:

IHS predicts digital transactions will only yield around $1.7 billion in 2012, compared to $11.1 billion for physical formats. Even by 2016, the research firm projects that digital viewing will only account for 17% of home entertainment revenue...

“We are looking at the beginning of the end of the age of movies on physical media like DVD and Blu-ray. But the transition is likely to take time: almost nine years after the launch of the iTunes Store, CDs are still a vital part of the music business.”

Sounds like we should be getting discs for years -- perhaps decades -- more yet. Hopefully at least time enough for technology to make that streaming/downloaded content achieve the same visual/audio quality as Blu-ray, if not exceed it. Hurrah!

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