The fire broke out very early Sunday morning on Universal’s 400-acre back lot, destroying 40,000-50,000 videos, which luckily are all backed up somewhere else. The videos contained very film Universal has ever done, plus some older television series.

The real tragedy is the loss of the courthouse square from Back to the Future, including the Clock Tower that was stuck at 10:04 p.m. in the film.

Slashfilm is reporting that the Clock Tower from Back to the Future was actually NOT burned in the fire and is just fine, despite reports from Sunday stating otherwise. Although, I had no idea that it is not the original set from the movies, it was built after the sequels from blueprints. The surrounding areas of the courthouse square still had some damage.

The King Kong exhibit is actually a stop on the Universal Tour, so that will be skipped for the time being.

No one was hurt, although three firefighters suffered minor injuries.

[AZ Central]

“Bioshock” takes place in an underwater city based on the free market principles of Ayn Rand, but things have gone disastrously wrong. Players control a pilot who crash-lands at a secret entrance to the city, called Rapture, and is drawn into a power struggle during which he discovers that his will is not as free as he’d thought.

“I think the whole utopia-gone-wrong story that’s cleverly unveiled to players is just brimming with cinematic potential,” said Verbinski. “Of all the games I’ve played, this is one that I felt has a really strong narrative.”

John Logan who wrote the screenplay for Gladiator and The Aviator is in talks to write this one. Verbinski will serve as director and producer. Verbinski, of course, is the director behind the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films.

No release date has even been targeted, but Verbinski has said he plans to start pre-production as soon as Logan’s script is finished and approved. A sequel to the game is scheduled to be released in 2009 which will almost certainly come before the film.

Starting this summer with the box-office disappointment Doomsday, Universal will start simultaneously releasing titles in Blu-Ray as well as the good ol’ DVD versions.

Some of the big titles coming out this summer that will be available in Blu-Ray before the end of the year: The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, Hellboy II, Mamma Mia and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

However, on July 22nd is when we’ll get three older films released on Blu-Ray: The Mummy, The Mummy Returns and the series spin-off, Scorpion King.

Coming sometime after that (but before the end of the year) are also The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Miami Vice, End of Days, U-571and Land of the Dead.

According to Variety.com, both Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass, the awesome team behind the Jason Bourne movies, have signed on to do a fourth with Universal.

That’s right…apparently all the talk of being finished with the series fell apart probably when they saw how much money they keep making with Bourne.

I for one don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand, having Jason Bourne back on the big screen, with the quality that has clearly been shown throughout the series, could be awesome. I’ve never been disappointed in any of these three movies, and the last one blew me away.

Now, the downside you have is ruining a perfect ending. Jason Bourne finds out the total and absolute truth about who he is at the end of Bourne Ultimatum, and swims off into the sunset. Where do you go from there? If you do a fourth, why not a fifth or sixth?

What do you guys think? Should the series keep going or does Bourne need to retire?

I’m just curious whether or not my new 11-disc collection of HD-DVD coasters can get more than a buck or two on Ebay.

Alright, maybe it’s not that serious, but yeah, I think it is. Let’s start off with a list of events that led to this:

1. Mike wants a high-def player, but waits like a year to see where things go
2. Mike sees HD-DVD sales going nuts and their prices finalling
3. Mike loses patience, sells his 360 and gets a sweet HD-DVD player in December that comes with sweet free HD-DVDs
4. Immediately news appears all over that despite the high sales, Blu-Ray is still winning
5. Rumors pop up that Warner is going to go ALL Blu-Ray
6. Warner denies rumors
7. Warner announces January 4th that it’s going ALL Blu-Ray
8. Mike cries

Point number 3 above is what you need to be thankful over. I truly believe that my decision to go ahead and purchase the HD-DVD player was the catalyst.

By now you may be asking what the heck this blog post is in reference to, so here it is.

Out of nowhere today, Warner Brothers issued an official press release that starts off something like this:

(January 4, 2008 – Burbank, CA) – In response to consumer demand, Warner Bros. Entertainment will release its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year, it was announced today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros. and Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.

I never read the rest of it…the tears clouded my vision. I love the little logo made by EngadgetHD today, it’s like a slap in the face:

Basically, before this announcement, the studios supporting both formats was kind of at a dead heat. You had Sony, Disney and Fox in the Blu-Ray corner, while Universal, Viacom and Warner were backing HD-DVD.

Well, come May 2008, Warner’s slide over to the Blu-Ray group seems like it could probably be the move that could eventually end the format war.

Toshiba, the chief-supporter of HD-DVD was shocked today and issued their own press release, and here’s an excerpt:

TOKYO, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ — Toshiba is quite surprised by Warner Bros.’ decision to abandon HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray, despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning the support of HD DVD. As central members of the DVD Forum, we have long maintained a close partnership with Warner Bros. We worked closely together to help standardize the first-generation DVD format as well as to define and shape HD DVD as its next-generation successor.

Well, it looks like Warner saw something that maybe I should have seen if I had looked a bit closer before pulling the trigger on the great offer Amazon.com had going.

Either way, it will be interesting to see the fall-out from this in the coming days and weeks. I’m really not as upset as I thought I’d be…mainly because this stuff just happens and it was fun to be a part of it, no matter what side I was on.

Besides, I have a follow-up blog to this on that kind of makes me wonder if the high-def DVD war has taken so long that it ended up killing itself.