Criterion Collection turns Blu

Take a peek at what news was waiting in my mailbox this morning. Criterion Collection is finally entering the Blu-ray market. While initially waiting it out on the sidelines until the pendulum finally swung away from HD DVD, the company known for releasing art house movies is turning to Blu-ray for their 1080p releases. Even better news for collectors, the Blu-ray releases will not cost any more than their standard DVD versions. We'll have to wait until October, but with titles including The Last Emperor and The Man Who Fell to Earth, the wait will be worthwhile. No word yet on what audio codec(s) they'll use, but expect it to be one of the high-resolution formats. Read below for the entire newsletter. Oh - and sign up for your own copy of the newsletter to get $10 off a $60 order placed before May 26th.

"We’ve got some exciting news for this fall, and we wanted you to hear it first.

Our first Blu-ray discs are coming! We’ve picked a little over a dozen titles from the collection for Blu-ray treatment, and we’ll begin rolling them out in October. These new editions will feature glorious high-definition picture and sound, all the supplemental content of the DVD releases, and they will be priced to match our standard-def editions.

Here’s what’s in the pipeline:

The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear

Alongside our DVD and Blu-ray box sets of The Last Emperor, we’ll also be putting out the theatrical version as a stand-alone release in both formats, priced at $39.95. Our Blu-ray release of Walkabout will be an all-new edition, featuring new supplements as well as a new transfer; we will also release an updated anamorphic DVD of Nicolas Roeg’s outback masterpiece at the same time.

As a special thank you to our newsletter subscribers, we'd like to offer you all $10 off any order of $60 or more placed on on criterion.com through Monday, May 26."—Leslie Shapiro