Paramount’s recession from the HD DVD scene is coming even earlier than expected, as the company has announced its last HD DVD movies will ship March 4.
Things We Lost in the Fire and Into the Wild, both scheduled to ship March 4, will be the final HD DVD titles released by Paramount. All of Paramount’s other previously announced HD DVD titles, including The Kite Runner (March 25), The Jack Ryan Collection (March 25), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (April 1) and There Will Be Blood (April 8) have been officially canceled.
Paramount is expected to begin producing its movies (once again) on Blu-ray Disc this summer.
The studio supported both the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats until fall 2007, when it announced its HD DVD alliance. Since then, the HD DVD market has all but collapsed, with Warner Bros. going exclusively to Blu-ray and Toshiba ceasing production of its HD DVD players. Paramount’s decision is, for all intents and purposes, the final nail in HD DVD’s coffin.