More Bond Blu-rays Coming This Year

Finally! At long last, the remaining nine James Bond movies will see release in high-definition on the Blu-ray format. Several waves came out in 2008 and 2009, but since then, we've seen nothing. Until now. Today at the Consumer Electronics Show, Fox and MGM announced that all 22 official 007 movies to date (that excludes rogue productions Never Say Never Again and Casino Royale '67, both of which are already available individually on Blu-ray from MGM) will be released on Blu-ray together in the massive "collectible box-set" Bond 50. It's the first time all the movies have been released together in the format, and marks the Blu-ray debut for You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights, GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies. In addition to the films, Bond 50 will boast "more than 130 hours of bonus features including some new and exclusive content." I'm really curious to see what that new and exclusive content is! All of the Blu-rays released so far have included the exact same special features as the DVD Special Editions, so does this new content mean that the missing titles will get new, additional extras? Or will there be a bonus disc (or discs)? I'm betting on the latter. SRP for this huge set (which marks the first time in recent memory that all of the films have been packaged together in any format in the U.S.) is a whopping $299.99, but it can already be pre-ordered on Amazon for substantially less: just $199.99. And that's not bad at all, as it works out to less than $10 a disc.

Of course the bad news here is that most fans likely already own the existing Blu-ray titles, and since no individual releases have been announced, they may feel compelled to shell out all over again for this complete set just to own the ones they don't already have. That's clearly the strategy here. And, personally, I have to admit it doesn't really bother me. Historically I've always upgraded to the latest release of Bond movies anyway, going all the way back to the days of VHS, so I'd probably buy this set even if the only upgrade was a new bonus disc. (I'm a sucker for new editions of James Bond and Evil Dead.) And for those who aren't completists like me (though I suspect a lot of readers are), I have no doubt that the missing titles will be released on their own sometime down the road.

The press release ends with a quote from Michael G. Wilson, promising that "We have a whole program of exciting activities planned for our 50th anniversary year, beginning with today’s announcement." This is an exciting beginning to 007's Golden Anniversary in the cinema. I can't wait to see the rest of the program EON's got planned! In the meantime, here's a trailer for the Blu-ray collection: