The timing of the announcement is very suspicious, Jerry. Before it was confirmed the basic rumour was that Paramount/Dreamworks were being paid somewhere in the region of $150m for this deal - though these rumours initially only suggested that this would have been a deal to ensure they stayed neutral and possibly released some catalogue titles exclusively on HD DVD.

For the Paramount rep to state that this is "the smart choice" for them when their titles sell an average of 2:1 in Blu's favour does set the odd alarm bell ringing. There's little doubting that a dual format release of Transformers would have echoed the 60/40 (and rising) sales gap Warner has seen with '300,' so the basic way to compensate a studio like Paramount/Dreamworks for that is to pay them off the difference that they would lose on a title like that not being a dual format release. There`s really no logic for such a once neutral major studio defecting at this point. It`s quite bizarre. Despite this I am sure they skirt through the anti-trust loop holes in the same way BD exclusive studios might (the games industry is rife with these types of deals that manage to avoid any legal investigation).

Worth noting that the full press release specifically states that this deal excludes all Spielberg films. I thought that was interesting.

Last edited by DanielB; 2007-08-20 17:55.