Following Monday’s announcement that DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures were exclusively backing the HD-DVD format, Transformers director Michael Bay posted a blog entry saying he was going to walk away from the successful franchise if the Blu-ray Disc format was going to be cast aside. Now it looks as if the action auteur wants the job, and the millions of dollars that come with it, after all.
Bay later recanted his departure statement, chalking it up to over reaction and the folly of blogging at 1:30 in the morning. He noted that he had just had dinner with some Blue-ray fans and got caught up in their contempt for the decision made by DreamWorks and Paramount concerning the format. In the latter post, he seems to be behind the choice of HD DVD.
‘I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark, which is the magic number,’ bay stated. ‘I like what I heard. As a director, I’m all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard firsthand people upset about a corporate decision.
So today I saw 300 on HD, it rocks! So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!’
The battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD will continue to rage on as cinephiles who previously replaced their VHS collections with DVDs buy into the latest scheme to market new hardware and sell catalog titles with a sexy new sizzle. However, the real furor may arise when studios decide to abandon standard-definition DVD completely, forcing consumers to upgrade when they may be perfectly content with current-generation technology. You can read Bay’s blogs and fan reactions at www.shootfortheedit.com.
