Fatal Harry Potter DVD mistake

[Marcus Telcontar]

I can hardly blieve they would have been this dumb...

http://entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,4454287%255E10431%255E%255Enbv,00.html


Pan and scan only?????

[BUFFJEDI]

I doubt they care,I think in there minds as long as it sales they are happy.Besides it for kids(Mostly ;) ) so I doubt it would matter anyway ,But iv'e been wrong before:)

[JMK]

I don't know about the North American version, but if they haven't come out with widescreen yet, they will. They were hoping to capitalize on people who would just go out and buy it right off the shelf and not think twice about buying pan and scan junk. What a crime.

[Mu Satach]

ok to have a DVD in pan and scan only is a crime against nature

[JediBoricua]

Hmmmm....I think I've found a location for Celebration III!

[Jinn Fizz]

Here in the States, both pan and scan and widescreen versions are available. Of course I bought the widescreen version, and it's a beautiful transfer.

Warner Bros. Home Video has a reputation of not wanting to do widescreen DVDs for "family titles", for some godforsaken reason. Last year when they released the anniversary edition of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, it was originally only in pan and scan. There was a huge uproar, including an online petition, so about a month after they released the pan and scan version, they released a widescreen version. The same thing happened with Cats and Dogs, kind of. They did release it in both versions, but in general you could only find the pan and scan version in stores. In order to get the widescreen version of it, I had to order it online.

Then they released a complete loser of a movie like See Spot Run in widescreen. Go figure. :huh

[darth_mcbain]

That is just stupid. I absolutely hate the pan&scan and would take the widescreen any day. It is almost disconcerting - watching the movie and then all of a sudden the entire image starts to shift on you... I was considering buying that DVD - not anymore...

[Mu Satach]

Some movies just *can't* work in Pan & Scan... Like the Pink Panther... there's this great scene where two gorillas are breaking into a safe... in Pan and Scan you loose track of which gorilla is which and the thing totally doesn't work because you need to see both of them at the same time to get the visual joke.

[Super Wookiee]

In most of my local stores they are over stocked on Harry Potter DVD's, and they are not selling very well.

[imported_QuiGonJ]

I read yesterday it rented more than it sold, but it's on track to usurp Shrek as the best selling DVD ever.. and Shrek has sold 9 million units.

[Charley]

Blarg @ Harry Potter.

Too much british whimsy in my diet....:x

[JMK]

Shrek has sold 9 Million DVD's? Or is that the total for both DVD and VHS? If it's just DVD, then that's pretty staggering. :eek

[Marcus Telcontar]

It was just DVD. Shrek is one hell of a good DVD

[Lady Vader]

Wait, wait. So they have Harry Potter on widescreen, or they don't? Cause if and when I buy it, I want it in widescreen, dangnabit!

[JMK]

No kidding Marcus! It is a great DVD, I just can't believe that a single DVD has sold that much. Most music CD's don't sell that much! Do you know where to find the top or 20 best selling DVD's of all time online?

[imported_QuiGonJ]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=848&ncid=790&e=5&u=/variety/20020606/film_variety/film_potter_dc_1

Try 10 million units in the US and Canada the first week of release.

[JMK]

Way to skew data, here we are talking about how Shrek sold 9 million DVD's and then they post this
Nearly 10 million copies of the VHS and DVD versions of last year's second biggest movie were sold to consumers in the U.S. and Canada in the first week of release since May 28, including more than a million copies purchased by video stores to rent out

That's combined sales, plus video store purchases. Shrek, on the other hand
DreamWorks claims that more than 24 million copies of "Shrek" have been sold to date domestically, nearly 9 million of them DVDs, for a combined consumer expenditure of about $460 million.

Talk about comparing apples and oranges. What a shoddily written and confusing article.

[Marcus Telcontar]

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/dvdsales/2001/top20.htm

Last year's DVD sales.

Box Office Mojo stares that DVD sales for Harry Potter are not high at all.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/articles/news/?id=020605v.htm

That's a better article