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02/15/2002 Archived Entry: "Widescreen DVDs at Blockbuster?"

I saw a link on xeney.net to an online petition protesting that Blockbuster will (has already?) stop carrying widescreen DVDs. This is bad for film aficionados, even if you don't patronize Blockbuster, because they are such a huge force in the market that many films might not even come out in Widescreen format if this happens. But--- I can't find a link to an actual news story about this, only links to the online petition. Is this the real deal? Is there any evidence backing this up? I could understand that Blockbuster might not put out a press release about such a change in policy, but I'd like to see an actual news story that's not just pointing to the petition, which has been around some months.

Update: (via rec.arts.sf.fandom newsgroup) Roger Ebert wrote about this recently, with a letter from a Blockbuster employee. "Now Blockbuster has asked manufacturers to supply DVDs in the pan-and-scan format. and does not carry letterboxed DVDs in many of its stores. This takes me back to a day years ago when I had one of the founders of Blockbuster in my home and was proudly showing off a letterboxed laserdisk. To my disbelief, he did not understand the format and I had to explain it to him. He was a retailer, not a movie lover. The company follows in the same tradition."