The Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 14th of March 2010 reveals some new titles that will sell bulk on DVD but may have a harder time on Blu-ray Disc.

Top seller right now is teen fantasy flick New Moon (note that this streets March 20th), followed closely by Disney’s animated family title The Princess and the Frog.

Alternatively we have art house films in the form of Broken Embraces from Sony, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Paris from MPI and Wonderful World from Magnolia.

On the Television side we have Breaking Bad: The Complete First Season and Breaking Bad: The Complete Second Season as well as South Park: The Complete Thirteenth Season.

It will be interesting to see how the week plays out from a market share and revenue perspective…

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

Strong new releases had the Blu-ray market share up a little to 14% and revenue up 50% to $30.62M for the week ending March 7th, according to Home Media Magazine.

The top seller was easily the big budget disaster epic 2012 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

New releases took second and third places also, with Where the Wild Things Are from Warner Home Video and Ponyo from Disney and Studio Ghibli.

The top 5 was rounded out by Oscar winner The Hurt Locker from Summit and X-Men Origins: Wolverine from Fox Hone Entertainment.

Law Abiding Citizen from Anchor Bay is still doing well in 6th position.

On the per title market share side, 2012 did extremely well for Blu-ray with 41% market share on Blu-ray Disc in its first week.

Where the Wild Things Are also had strong sales with 28% market share while Ponyo did even better with 34% Blu-ray market share.

The Hurt Locker was also in the same range with 28% of its sales on Blu-ray Disc.

New DVD release Curious George 2: Follow that Monkey from Universal pushed things in the other direction with no Blu-ray Disc version available.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs from Fox was the big Blu-ray winner for the week though, with 60% market share on Blu-ray Disc, no doubt due to promotional pricing.

March 2nd 2010 marked the arrival of the big budget movies on Blu-ray this year, with the Sony Pictures release 2012.

This epic disaster movie ponders if mankind even has a future after cataclysmic events from an ancient Mayan prophecy.

The sun has gone into a new strange phase and neutrinos are heating the Earth’s core at an alarming rate.

Lakes are drying up and Los Angeles is suffering small tremors on a regular basis.

Meanwhile author turned limo driver Jackson Curtis is taking his family out on a camping trip, only to discover ‘the truth’ from a rambling crackpot radio announcer.

Can Jackson and his family escape the destruction as Los Angeles slides into the Pacifc?

Will they uncover the obligatory international government conspiracy to protect the wealthy and elite from the end of times?

Certainly the film makers have gone to great lengths here to present an exciting movie, but in reality it runs too long and the destruction of the planet’s icons becomes monotonous after a while.

They could easily have slashed millions off the special effects budget by making a tighter two hour movie.

In addition, while sometimes it is fun to turn the brain off and munch on the popcorn, this movie took the suspension of belief thing to a whole new level - so much so that it just fails to be even close to credible.

On the other hand, this film features top notch practical and computer generated special effects which are on a scale never previously seen.

The cast is also a pretty decent ensemble,  including John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson and Chjwetel Ejiofor.

2012 was directed by Roland Emmerich, famous for epic special effects movies including The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day, as well as factually loose period pieces like The Patriot.

Emmerich promises that this will be his last disaster flick.

The movie was given a a bit of a hard hard time by critics - it earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of 39% and IMDb score of 6.1/10, which I think is a pretty fair assessment.

2012 had a strong run at the cinema, reaching $166.1M at the US box office.

The video on the disc is an AVC 1080p encode at 22 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1.

The movie looks great, as you would expect from such a high budget production.

For full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc, check out the details page for 2012.

The main audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 24 bits resolution at 48 kHz.

The disc is a dual layer BD50, with 41.7 GB used and is coded for All Regions.

Supplements for this title include Bonus View Picture in Picture streams and BD Live Network features.

The BD exclusive movieIQ feature allows movie details to be researched as the movie plays.

The Picture-in-Picture option features the director’s Vision, including pre-visualization, storyboards and behind-the-scenes footage, as well as interviews with cast and crew.

The first disc also features a commentary with writer/director Roland Emmerich and co-writer Harald Kloser.

Additionally an alternate ending that is a little more sugar coated than the theatrical version is present on the first disc.

Most of the special features are on the second dedicated supplemental disc.

There is a small selection of deleted scenes where good choices to be removed from the movie.

BD Java is put to good use in the Interactive Mayan Calendar where you can enter a date to reveal your horoscope and find your Mayan personality profile based on your birth date.

There is also a short featurette that covers the Mysteries of the Mayan Calendar and the extensive cycles that it includes.

The Designing the End of the World featurette is the main making of documentary, and it largely covers the computer generated and practical special effects that were combined to form the images on the screen.

In a lot of ways a film buff will likely find this segment is more interesting than the movie itself, especially with the scale of the practical effects used to give the film a feeling of authenticity.

The history and nature of the director is covered in the Roland Emmerich: Master of the Modern Epic featurette

The Science Behind the Destruction featurette looks into potentially plausible real causes for the disasters presented in the film.

The actors in the film take center stage in the The End of the World: The Actor’s Perspective featurette, which covers the casting and the challenges of acting in this kind of movie.

The Countdown to the Future featurette investigates the potential for the the end of the real world in 2012 due to increasingly unusual solar activity and the phases of Mayan calendar.

The Time For Miracles music video by Adam Lambert of American Idol fame is included along with a ‘making of’ feature for the video.

The Digital Copy for PSP is actually included on the supplemental Blu-ray Disc and is transferable to the PSP via a PlayStation3.

A separate DVD disc contains the Digital Copy for iTunes and Windows Media.

Whether you consider it an amazing disaster epic or an amazingly epic disaster, the two disc edition of 2012 is a great Blu-ray Disc release from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Even if the movie isn’t all that appealing to you, this disc is an excellent choice for demonstrating the capabilities of Blu-ray Disc and your home theater system.

The retail price is $39.95, or order it right now at Amazon for $24.99, saving 37%!

If you are not interested in all of the special features and the digital copy, you can find the 2012 Single Disc Version for a little less at $23.99, though I think the extras are worth the extra $1 myself.

Extras:

• movieIQ
• Picture-in-Picture: Roland’s Vision (BD Exclusive) – Includes pre-visualization, storyboards and behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with filmmakers, cast and crew
• Commentary with Writer/Director Roland Emmerich & Co-Writer Harald Kloser
• Alternate Ending
• Interactive Mayan Calendar (BD Exclusive) – Enter a date to reveal your horoscope and personality profile
• Mysteries of the Mayan Calendar featurette
• Designing the End of the World featurette
• Roland Emmerich: Master of the Modern Epic featurette
• Science Behind the Destruction featurette
• The End of the World: The Actor’s Perspective featurette
• Deleted Scenes
• Countdown to the Future
• “Time For Miracles” Music Video by Adam Lambert
• Making the Music Video “Time For Miracles” with Adam Lambert
• Digital Copy for PSP – included on the Blu-ray and transferable via the PlayStation®3
• Digital Copy for iTunes and PC

Synopsis:

From Roland Emmerich, director of The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day, comes the ultimate action-adventure film, exploding with groundbreaking special effects. As the world faces a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions, cities collapse and continents crumble. 2012 brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors. Starring John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Woody Harrelson and Danny Glover.

Right now you can save an extra $30 on the refurbished Sony BDPS360 Blu-ray Disc Player, now only $89.99 at Sony Style!

It is not often that you see a Sony player discounted to under $100.

This promotion ends March 13th.

The Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 7th of March 2010 features the first Paramount title in a little while - Up in the Air is a great little film and well worth a look.

Other day and date titles for today from Sony and Disney both include DVD and Digital Copy, though neither Planet 51 nor Old Dogs were well received by the critics.

On the more dramatic side, Lionsgate has Precious and The Stoning of Soraya M., while Sony goes with a family movie Hachi: A Dog’s Tale and ultraviolence with The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

The Blu-ray market share was back up to 13% on a revenue of $20.96M for the week ending February 28th, according to Home Media Magazine.

While it was good to see double figure market share and revenue over $20M, it was a bit of a strange week, perhaps with significant sales promotions for certain titles.

Law Abiding Citizen from Anchor Bay was again in 1st place, ahead of Pixar’s Up in 2nd place - and hint that promotional pricing was in play.

The best selling new title was Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths from Warner in 3rd place, ahead of Star Trek from Paramount and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian from Fox in 4th and 5th.

Other new titles didn’t fare quite as well, with The Informant! from Warner in 10th place,  Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant from Universal in 12th place, and The Box from Warner down in 15th position.

Looking at per title market share, we see almost the exact opposite of last week.

Top selling Law Abiding Citizen had a strong 41% Blu-ray Disc market share while Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths also performed well with 29% share.

New Warner titles The Informant! and The Box sold19% and 18% on Blu-ray Disc respectively, while Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant had 21% share.

Strong signs of promotional pricing were evident with a number of titles outselling their DVD counterparts.

Up had 55% market share, Star Trek an amazing 77% market share, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian had 68% and Inglourious Basterds from Universal squeaked in with 52% Blu-ray share.

I was a little surprised that Everybody’s Fine from Disney/Miramax didn’t get a Blu-ray Disc release, so no market share for that title at all.

The Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 28th of February 2010 reveals a few bigger releases this week.

Sony steps it up with no less than two versions of the Roland Emmerich distater movie 2012 and the 2012 2 Disc Edition that also includes a Digital Copy.

Warner has Spike Jonze’s much anticipated adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, again with Digital Copy.

Warner is also releasing a Digibook version of the original Clash of the Titans while Fox has the latest Jared Hess film Gentlemen Broncos, that features Jermaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

The Blu-ray market share was at a 2010 low of 8% and the for the week ending February 21st, according to Home Media Magazine.

On the other hand the weekly revenue was still a fairly healthy $18.58M - up from last year and not bad for a week with no big releases.

The top sellers for the week were new releases - Law Abiding Citizen from Anchor Bay, followed by Halo Legends from Warner in 2nd place.

Recent releases Couples Retreat from Universal, Zombieland from Sony Pictures and last year’s Up from Disney filled out the top 5 on the chart.

The market share by title list shows why the market share was so low.

While Law Abiding Citizen managed a healthy 28% market share on Blu-ray Disc, other typically strongBlu-ray titles did quite poorly, like Up with 4%, The Hangover with 3% and Star Trek from Paramount with only 9% market share on Blu-ray Disc.

It seems likely that promotional DVD pricing helped skew these titles strongly towards DVD for the week.

Halo Legends and The Hurt Locker from Summit market share were in the 30% to 31%, which is more in line with my expectations.

Zombieland also continues to have a solid 29% market share on Blu-ray Disc

If you have not heard already, be sure to not operate your ‘fat’ Playstation 3 until advised that it is ok by Sony.

Last night a new bug manifested itself  that renders the old style PS3’s for the most part inoperable.

Sony expects to have a fix soon, and advises that it is best to avoid using the older PS3’s until the fix is available.

The newer slim Playstation 3 units are not affected.

Mostly smaller releases this week in the Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week of the 21st of February 2010.

Directors Richard Kelly and Steven Soderbergh have new films out this week with The Box and The Informant! respectively from Warner Home Video.

On the cult movie side we have the first Troma title Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, and television related titles in the form of Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day and Nurse Jackie: Season 1.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.