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New Line has set May 25 for the home-video release of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at a list price of $29.95 for DVD and $24.97 for VHS. An extended version of the film, including numerous "extras" is expected to be released around the Christmas season, priced at about $40.00. "You could almost call them the everyman edition and the fan set," Video Watchdog editor Tim Lucas told today's (Monday) Los Angeles Times, "because the expanded editions really do play to the fans." Meanwhile, it was announced that the first Lord of the Rings movie will air on The WB network in HDTV during the November sweeps.

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a list price of $29.95 for DVD and $24.97 for VHS

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Is it me or is that a ridiculously high price for a DVD? I think a DVD should be between $16 & $22. I know that it will be a 2 DVD set but really, that’s way too much money. I paid $18 for the Two Towers.

What do you guys think, do DVD’s usually cost this much or is this a start of a new trend? I think I would just wait for that $40 one and be done with this epic.
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-10-2004, 02:39 AM:
 
That's actually cheaper than a lot of 'big releases'. You should see the rental pricing on those DVDs.
 

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Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 03-10-2004, 03:45 AM:
 
A lot of smaller video stores rush out to Costco the day of release to pick up the dvds at below dealer cost. They are screwed with the VHS prices still.
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-10-2004, 03:58 AM:
 
They're also screwed since they missed the two month window prior to sell through. By then the rental copy cost has dropped too.
 

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Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 03-10-2004, 05:17 AM:
 
I'm not too sure what you mean on two months prior to sell through.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-10-2004, 05:44 AM:
 
Most video releases come in two stages. Initially, the price is set high--in the $100 range--with the idea that rental outlets will pay the high price in order to have a "new release." Later, the cost drops to the $20 range for general consumption (since few people would pay $100 for a tape/DVD).

I don't think that $30 is an unreasonable price for a DVD, assuming that the quality of the film transfer and DVD compression/encoding is high. Especially considering that many stores charge $15-18 for music CDs.
 

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Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 03-10-2004, 06:29 AM:
 
$29.95 is a very typical "list" price for a DVD. But there are many, many places to purchase for significantly less. On the first week of a release, I would expect to see a $29.95 title for anywhere from $17.99 to $19.99, depending on the distributor (Universal titles seem to be a little higher than others; Artisan can be much lower.)

Best source for information on mail/internet ordering DVD's is DVD Price Search. That site can give you a comparison of all major internet retailers.

For Internet pricing, generally the lowest price is at Deep Discount DVD. Shipping is free, but slow.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-10-2004, 10:24 AM:
 
The list prices being quoted for LOTR: The Return of the King are in line with prices for Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Unless you buy all your DVDs at Sam Goody's, Media Play or other stores that charge full MSRP, you won't pay $29.95 for the 2-disc set or $40 for the 4-disc version.

Considering the 11 Oscars won by Return of the King (not to mention its big money earned at the box office) I would expect quite a big DVD rollout and deep discount when it hits store shelves in late May. New Line will want to try to break DVD sales records and stands a good chance to do it with this movie. So I would expect stores like Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy to be selling the 2-disc DVD for perhaps $16 to $19.
 

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 03-10-2004, 12:09 PM:
 
It is very obvious when many who complain that some DVD prices are too high have never bought and collected laserdiscs. When I used to buy them, I was very happy when a movie only disc was priced around $29.95. Most of MGM single disc new titles were at that price and two disc sets cost $5.00 more. Image Entertainment titles were the highest at $39.95. Universal, New Line, Warners Brothers, Paramount and others were priced at $34.95 for single discs and $39.95 for double platters. With the exception of MGM who provided a trailer from the movie most of the time, the other studio discs were movie only. Laserdiscs that featured all of the extra stuff that is on most DVD today, would be a special edition box set and the price would be about $75.00 or more such as a movie like "TLOTR-The Return of The King". When George Lucas released the original "STAR WARS" trilogy in a box set, the price was $250.000 and I gladly paid it! The 2nd box set with the digitally restored scenes and Dolby 5.1 sound was priced around $150.00 and I bought it again. The newly updated "STAR WARS" trilogy out on DVD in September will be priced about $60.00 and I am also planning to buy that too.

As several people had already mentioned, the final TLOTR film will not sell at the MSRP price of $29.95 by most video retailers but will be much lower. The average price will be around $19.95 at places like Tower Video and probably $14.95 at places like Circuit City for a limited time.

-Claude
 

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Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 03-10-2004, 01:43 PM:
 
MGM has some of the cheapest new releases ever. " Out of Time " is $18.99 but Universal/Fox/New Line's new releases in the $22.99-28.99 range usually.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-10-2004, 02:40 PM:
 
DVDs are way too expensive for what they are. Sure they are worlds better than VHS, but really the quality is pretty bad. As such, I own less than a dozen.

D-VHS titles are another thing entirely though. I support those at the common $50 price tag no problem whatsoever.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 03-15-2004, 08:49 AM:
 
Save your money. When HD-DVDs begin being released, we will all have to purchase our entire collection all over again. So you are better off waiting for them to make it to the $5 bins. I get all my DVDs from Columbia House once they are reduced to $9.99 and $11.99. Now that's what I call fairly priced! Hopefully by the time HD-DVDs are released, I will be too old, too blind and too deaf to see or hear any difference between HD DVDs and regular DVDs (except maybe the regular DVDs will have all rotted by then) and my old age will save me from this merry-go-round of one format replacing another and me having to re-purchase the same title time and time again.

Hey, just sell us the damn 35mm prints! There are 4000 prints of ROTK; I am sure that is more than enough to satisfy the small, collector's market. The studios will still have plenty left over to band-saw....we wouldn't want to deprive them of that little perverse Natziesque pleasure of theirs. They are going to bandsaw all 4000 of them anyway, so why not just sell 3000 to us and shut us up? Then they can price their special edition, junk footage added, self-destructing DVDs any way they damn well please, cause quite frankly, we won't give a rats ass.
 

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Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 03-15-2004, 06:14 PM:
 

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Is it me or is [$29.95] a ridiculously high price for a DVD?

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$29.95 is a very typical "list" price for a DVD.

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