The Digital Bits chats with Warner Home Video

Any of my friends will tell you I'm a big WB mark; I think they take the most chances with their cash of any major studio in the US. Bias aside, it's hard to deny that the WHV division is doing the best (non-Criterion) work in R1 DVDs today. The Digital Bits hosts a chat every now & then wherein readers can query on obscure titles and reissues. The whole transcript is available here; here are some highlights:

Nicolas Roeg and Douglas Cammell's Performance is scheduled to hit DVD within a year.

New box sets on the way: Jimmy Stewart, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Lon Chaney, Clark Gable, Paul Newman and Andy Hardy.

2-Disc editions of Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange and 2001 are coming this year (as predicted) - the first two in their theatrical aspect ratios, as opposed to Kubrick's insistence on full-frame. The others are being remastered in HD, with further Kubrick titles to come.

Stroheim's Greed is finally coming.

Working on special editions of The Candidate (!!!!!!) and Jeremiah Johnson.

Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud is a-comin'.

Laurel & Hardy discs coming, in the TCM line.

WHV owns and is looking at Zabriskie Point.

They're culling materials for a 2-disc DVD of The Magnificent Ambersons.

Sidney Lumet's The Hill, The Yakuza and Prince of the City are all on the way eventually.

Same with new reissues of Beetlejuice, Deliverance, Little Shop Of Horrors, Rio Bravo, The Man Who Would Be King, The Road Warrior, Poltergeist, Bonnie and Clyde, and The Maltese Falcon.

Another noir box, as well as a "Tough Guys" (followup to WB Gangsters Collection) box.

There's more... and more... etc. I was a little sad to hear that they nixed the possibility of a new DVD of Three Kings, which was close to a done deal before Russell got into hot water for his Soldiers Pay documentary.

Why didn't anybody ask about Ace In The Hole?