SAN FRANCISCO - Grunts, the first in Raging Stallion's planned series of military epics, will hit the streets March 31 as what is believed to be the first gay adult movie on Blu-ray disc.
The movie was released on standard-definition DVD in late November.
The studio said it chose Grunts to be its first Blu-ray disc because of the importance of the title: The 22-man military epic was its top-selling title of 2007 and has retained the title thus far in 2008. The film was nominated for 20 GAYVN Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Chris Ward and Ben Leon), Best Actor (Jake Deckard) and Best Supporting Actor (Ricky Sinz).
Raging Stallion president Chris Ward said his studio is determined to lead the industry into the HD era.
"We upgraded all of our equipment to handle full 1080p HD footage over a year ago, so we have had the ability to make the switch to full HD for some time," he said. "The upgrade was very expensive - the cameras alone were nearly $20,000. All of our computers had to be replaced with Mac G5s and our editing software also required expensive upgrades. The DVD authoring program alone costs a fortune. Rather than rush a disc to market in 2007, we decided to wait until the market was ready for the product - and that time is now. When viewers see Raging Stallion in HD on Blu-ray, there will be no going back."
Previously, Ward noted, Raging Stallion had planned to adopt the less-expensive HD DVD format. However, recent customer preferences have given Blu-ray a boost in the competition between the formats, despite Blu-ray costing about five times as much as HD DVD to manufacture.
"Blu-ray seems to have won the format wars, and eventually all studios will have to deal with Blu-ray," Ward predicted. "Obviously we hope that being the first out of the gate will give us a competitive edge and keep Raging Stallion in the position of an industry leader."
Raging Stallion plans to offer Grunts on Blu-ray in a special package that also will include the regular DVD version of the movie. This will allow customers who have not yet purchased a Blu-ray player to enjoy the movie today and have the Blu-ray version on hand when they eventually purchase a new player.
Pricing for the new Blu-ray edition of Grunts will be announced later this month, Ward said.
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