Merrick here...

This information apparently hit late last week, but slipped through the cracks in the torrent of Comic-Con madness. As it's still germane, I thought I'd go ahead and pass it along.

When THE LORD OF THE RINGS Blu-Rays were announced (HERE), many fans were disappointed to learn that only the original theatrical versions of the films would be issued on Blu-Ray - as opposed to the dramatically extended versions of each title that were made available on DVD.

We received quite a bit of mail about this, so I thought you might be interested in Collider's Comic-Con conversation with Peter Jackson:

He told me the first editions to hit Blu-ray are going to be the theatrical versions and a year later we’d get the extended editions. The only good news is he told me the studio has started talking to him about doing some new extras for the Blu-ray extended editions. No word on exactly what the new stuff might be.

...Jackson told Collider HERE.

So, Blu-Rays of the expanded editions of the films are about a year away (bet they push 'em further back - possibly to coincide with the release of THE HOBBIT?), and they're already working on extras beyond what will appear on the theatrical length set linked above.

If you've never seen the extended version of these films, definitely consider giving them a look. When I first heard about them, I was unable to conceive that such long films could in any way benefit from being expanded. But, damn it, as far as I'm concerned the longer versions work quite a bit better than the theatrical releases. They seem to flow better, and come across as much more well rounded.