Paramount to Release Blu-ray Titles in Summer

Update: 2/29/2007, see below
According to a story in The Hollywood Reporter, Parmount Pictures will release its first Blu-ray titles in the summer. The studio's last HD DVD titles will be the already-scheduled Into the Wild and Things We Lost in the Fire, both due out next week. Paramount has canceled its remaining planned HD DVD releases, in favor of switching production to Blu-ray.

A curious point in this post-HD DVD drama: That Paramount is free to move forward with its Blu-ray plans, but its subsidiary DreamWorks Animation--which entered into an agreement with HD DVD proponents to back that now-moribund format--says it is still contracturally obligated to stay with HD DVD.

When that deal--which reportedly included financial kickbacks to Paramount and Dreamworks in exchange for their support of the HD DVD format--was first hatched in August 2008, industry insiders told me that the deal carried both a time limitation (18 months max--in spite of what Paramount executives said in interviews) and an escape clause. What's bizarre to me is that the escape clause appears in place for Paramount, but not for Dreamworks. An odd discrepancy in the legal paperwork--or perhaps someone's missing something? Inquiring minds want to know...

Update: According to High-Def Digest Digest, Paramount has clarified that DreamWorks Animation actually will be following Paramount, its studio parent, in the path to Blu-ray. That makes much more sense--my guess is that the reports circulating earlier in the week from DreamWorks that the company was still tied to HD DVD was more due to a communications breakdown than any legal wrangling.

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