D-Day goes digital

In a move that will make anyone with a DVD start drooling with anticipation, Steven Spielberg has decided to release Saving Private Ryan on DVD in the US this November – the first of his blockbusters to make the transition to digital. The Oscar-winning opus has already broken records in the US rental market, making $9.6 million in the first week it was released on video – the biggest rental debut in history. Although Dreamworks executives have denied plans to release Spielberg’s other box office megamovies on DVD, industry pundits quoted in Variety magazine feel that Ryan could ‘open the floodgates’ for the release of Close Encounters and the Indiana Jones trilogy in the near future. So far, only ‘minor’ Spielberg movies such as The Colour Purple and Amistad have made it to DVD.