Ice Age features makes BD Live more accessible to kids
PHYSICAL: Dinosaurs director says families need movies in multiple formats
By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 10/22/2009
OCT. 22 | PHYSICAL: LOS ANGELES—20th Century Fox Home Entertainment will debut an enhanced version of its IMDb.com database feature for the Blu-ray Disc version of its Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, due in stores on Oct. 27.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs animator Eric Favela (l.) and director Carlos Saldanha join Scrat for a day of family fun on the 20th Century Fox studio lot in celebration of the animated adventure’s Oct. 27 Blu-ray and DVD release.
The studio previewed the feature in a media and family event on its lot today.
With this Web-enabled feature, viewers will be able to get more information about who is voicing their favorite Ice Age characters. People can click onto a picture of a character, such as Scrat and Buck, while the movie is rolling, and find out details on the actor/actress behind it.
Generally, with the Web site IMDb.com, people search not by character, but by actor or film title, when they want further details about a movie. This additional character option should help younger kids enjoy the Ice Age IMDb.com feature since they aren’t necessarily required to have background actor/actress knowledge.
Fox also believes families will especially connect with its Blu-ray/DVD combo set for Ice Age, which packs in standard-definition, high-definition and digital copy versions of the film.
Ice Age director Carlos Saldanha thinks it’s wise that Fox is offering all three formats in one package—a first for the franchise. He notes that these days, different family members watch movies so differently that films need to be offered in various formats.
“I have kids, and sometimes we’ll want to pop the DVD in the car player, and at home, I like the Blu-ray version because it’s the closest quality to what I want to watch movies in,” said Saldanha. “And with digital copy, kids are growing up with the iPhone and iPod—that’s their screen. Kids want movies in the theater, on their cell phones—everywhere. You need to be flexible.”
Ice Age is one of Fox’s most important film franchises, with the first two installments selling more than 75 million in home video units worldwide. There’s every indication this latest film also should perform well, as its $878 billion in worldwide box-office topped the theatrical haul of each of the first and second Ice Age movies.
