Inventory of New Theatrical Releases With a Box Office Gross of at Least $25 Million

Calendar of $25 Million-Plus Theatrical Releases as of week ending November 23, 2012

Titles listed in red are newly announced for DVD & Blu-ray.

* ARR (Asset Rollover Rate) measures the length of time (in days) between a motion picture's initial theatrical release and its debut in the DVD/Blu-ray market.  

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Virgil Films & Entertainment's Stolen Seas Debuts Feb. 12

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Fast ships run.  The smart captains avoid the unfriendly waters.  But those unfortunate souls who run afoul of the Somali pirates face a hellish captivity … desperately hoping for ransom to be paid.

Documentary filmmaker Thymaya Payne takes us on an adventure like no other in the Virgil Films & Entertainment DVD debut on Feb. 12 of Stolen Seas.

Three years in the making, this unique look at a world that seems like one from another era — when the skull and crossbones flew above the riggings of tall ships — takes the armchair adventurer behind the scenes of a real-life negotiation between Somali pirates and owners of the cargo vessel that they have captured.

On Nov. 7, 2008, the Danish-flagged cargo ship CEC Future was seized by pirates in the waters off the coast of Somalia and 13 members of its crew suddenly found themselves at the center of intense hostage negotiations.   Like 49 other ships taken during 2008, their freedom was suddenly in the hands of others and beyond their control.

Stolen Seas From Virgil Films & Entertainment, Feb. 12

Filmmaker Thymaya Payne blends interviews with the ship’s owner (the Clipper Group’s Per Gullestrup), hostages, their relatives, experts on the subject of international policy and modern-day piracy and the actual pirates themselves, including the “negotiator” Ishmael Ali, to weave an adventure tale that is all too real.

For 70 long — and hellish — days the back and forth negotiations drag on with the lives of the crew of the CEC Future literally hanging in the balance.  

Happy ending?   You’ll have to catch the DVD release on Feb. 12 of Stolen Seas to find that out!!!

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Virgil Films & Entertainment

Looper From Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Dec. 31

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Writer/director Rian Johnson’s sci-fi thriller, Looper, has been in the queue for a couple of weeks — with a Dec. 31 street date all but certain — but it wasn’t until now that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment made that official.

This post-Labor Day theatrical release, starring Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt, makes the move to home entertainment with a zippy ARR of just 95 days.  The box office take was a nice $65.1 million.

There will be separate DVD and Blu-ray SKUs, each featuring UltraViolet.  Bonus features include commentary from filmmaker Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom), who is joined by actors Emily Blunt and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, plus there are five deleted scenes (with commentary from Johnson and actor Noah Segan) and two featurettes.

Exclusive to the Blu-ray SKU are 17 additional deleted scenes (also with commentary featuring Johnson and Segan) and one additional featurette — “The Science of Time Travel.”

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: http://www.dvdreleasereport.com/

Wolfe Video's The Wise Kids On Jan. 8

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Filmmaker Stephen Cone’s crossover film, The Wise Kids, will be the first film released on DVD from Wolfe Video to start the New Year.  The street date is Jan. 8.

When you hear “high school seniors” and “sexuality,” the mind just naturally drifts towards drugs, sex, booze and party, party, party … the American Pie sort of thing. 

But The Wise Kids is nothing like that, which is, in a word: refreshing.  The same plot over and over again about teen shenanigans, no matter how funny, does tend to give off that old “been there, done that” vibe.  

It is different in that we are introduced to three high school friends living in Charleston, South Carolina — Tim (Tyler Ross — Nate & Margaret, Little Men), Brea (Molly Kunz — The Penny) and Laura (newcomer Allison Torem) — who are about to take the next big step … life after high school.  

They go to church.  They think and have conversations about what waits ahead.  And, they have to get through the revelation that Tim is, well, gay.  That’s the big deal; the crisis of the moment.   

The South, gay and kids that actually go to church … a nice package of subjects that would seem to be ripe targets for lesser filmmakers to mock or characterized with straw men, but Cone (In Memoriam, The Christians, etc.), who wrote and directed, makes his characters real and their story both believable and interesting.  Engaging.

These three friends have conversations.  They talk.  They question.  Things are at odds with what they’ve come to believe, but they get through it.  

John Sayles writes characters three, even four deep, in his films.  That’s what Cone does here — minor characters that would be “throwaways,” cardboard or space fillers are brought to life; they are fully formed — even if on the screen for just a few moments — and they are never what we expect.

As a result, this indie film production has pulled in a ton of film festival awards, including the Outfest Grand Jury Awards for Outstanding Screenplay and Outstanding Narrative Feature Film, plus the Jury Award for Best Film at Atlanta’s Out on Film and more.

Bonus features on the DVD release for The Wise Kids include a behind-the-scenes featurette.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: http://www.dvdreleasereport.com/

Taken 2, 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment On Jan. 15

The cat is out of the bag — which usually comes from sales getting a jump on publicity — as Liam Neeson returns on Jan. 15 courtesy of 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment as Bryan Mills in Taken 2 (a hard luck fellow who is always getting members of his family kidnapped).  

The ARR is 102 days and the box office take in the domestic market currently stands at $131.8 million (with that level of performance for a sequel, it would come as no surprise if cousins, nieces or nephews were the next up for abduction).

SKU configuration includes a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack (with Digital Copy) and a stand-alone DVD edition.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: http://www.dvdreleasereport.com/

Year To Date DVD Release Comparisons By Category

* Yearly totals for 2006 - 2011 are actual results (including discontinued SKUs);
2012 is the projected final SKU count based on 2006 - 2011 year-to-date averages.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: http://www.dvdreleasereport.com/

Indican Pictures' Gunfight at Yuma, Dec. 4

Writer/director Alveraz Ricardez will see his mixed-genre Western adventure, Gunfight at Yuma, make its DVD debut on Dec. 4 from Indican Pictures.

Filmed in the rugged backcountry near Yuma, Arizona, we find loner Caleb Williams (Christopher Mur — The Devil’s Dominoes), a mysterious gunfighter who is known in the territory as simply The Tailor.  

A backstory reveals that his wife was brutally murdered and now this once peaceful man has now become a revenge-filled killer, except when two injured and near-dead strangers stumble upon his isolated ranch and he does the unexpected … nurse them back to health.

Their arrival sets things in motion that turns everything you knew about the Old West on its ear.

Indican Pictures has selected Jan. 15 as the DVD debut date for composer Brian Wayne Transeau’s (aka: BT) experimental film, This Binary Universe.

Six years ago BT released the album of the same name, which feature seven separate segments or movements.  It was/is an eclectic blend of music styles that fans and critics alike discussed and pondered at length.

Now comes This Binary Universe as a feature film, with the various movements — “All That Makes Us Human Continues,” “See You on the Other Side,” “1.618,” etc. — presented with visuals that range from live action, to CGI to hand drawn animation.  It all comes together as a visual feast.  

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: http://www.dvdreleasereport.com/

Comedy, Kid-Vid & TV From Paramount In Q1'13

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!   Sort of goes with Kid-Vid and TV and Comedy, oh my!   Perhaps a stretch, but there is a certain alliteration to it … Kid-Vid and TV and Comedy, oh my!

At any rate, that’s what Paramount Home Media Distribution has planned for Q1’13 with a series of announcements this week featuring new DVD product offerings from Comedy Central and Nickelodeon … plus vintage TV collections.

Let’s get right to it.  First up on Jan. 15 is the Comedy Central special title Anthony Jeselnik: Caligula, which features the former writer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in his 60-minute stand-up special.  

Also streeting on the same Jan. 15 date are two Let’s Learn DVDs from Nickelodeon and featuring Dora and the rest of her Nick, Jr. friends in two learning adventures targeted for the little ones — Let’s Learn: 1,2,3s and Let’s Learn: A,B,Cs.

Other Nickelodeon productions added to the schedule this past week include Bubble Guppies: When We Grow Up, which is slated for release on Feb. 5 and Dora the Explorer returns in three new adventures on Feb. 12 in Dora’s Butterfly Ball (featuring: “Loop-de-Loop,” “Butterfly Ball” and “Father’s Day!”).

On the TV-on-DVD front, Feb. 5 marks the arrival of the five-disc collection of Gunsmoke: The Seventh Season, Volume Two. 

The following week, Feb. 12, look for Bonanza: The Official Fifth Season, Volume One (a five-disc set), Bonanza: The Official Fifth Season, Volume Two (four discs in this one) and Matlock: The Eighth Season (a six-disc collection).

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: http://www.dvdreleasereport.com/

Bowery Boys And More From Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video was busy this past week adding to its selection of new DVD and Blu-ray product offerings.

For example, added to next week’s release calendar (Nov. 20) is a 12-film collection featuring the comedy antics of Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall (who started out in 1937 with Humphrey Bogart as the Dead End Kids in the film, Dead End), along with pals Bobby Jordan and Billy Benedict as the Bowery Boys.  

The collection is titled Bowery Boys, Volume One, which gives one hope that all 48 films in the series will see the light of day from Warner Home Video on DVD.

Also added to the release calendar on Nov. 20 is the double-disc collection of Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show: The Complete Series.

Streeting on Nov. 27 are a trio of rare Robert Mitchum films (one theatrical and two MOWs)  — My Forbidden Past (1951, with Ava Gardner), One Shoe Makes it Murder (co-starring Angie Dickinson) and Promises to Keep (with son Christopher Mitchum and co-starring Tess Harper and Claire Bloom) — plus there will also be the five-disc set of Without a Trace: The Complete Fifth Season available to own on that date.

Added to Dec. 4 release calendar are TV Westerns, Dollar for the Dead (a 1998 MOW starring Emilio Estevez, along with Ed Lauter, Howie Long and William Forsythe) and Two For Texas (also 1998, teaming Kris Kristofferson with the likes of Tom Skerritt and Peter Coyote).

Shifting to Dec. 11, look for a trio of Hitler/Gestapo themed theatrical releases that have been pulled from the film vaults and dusted off for their respective debuts on DVD.   Genre-collectors and film buffs will be keen for these selections.

I Escaped From The Gestapo is a 1943 film directed by Harold Young (The Mummy’s Tomb, The Scarlet Pimpernel, etc.) and starring Dean Jagger and John Carradine … and noted for footage featuring Frances Farmer, who logged one day of shooting before having her legendary breakdown (and chronicled in 1982 film, Frances, starring Jessica Lange).

The other two films arriving on Dec. 11 are Operation Eichmann, the script was literally plucked from the headlines of the day — 1961, with Werner Klemperer as the notorious Adolf Eichmann, who was captured by Mossad in Argentina the year before — and the 1962 Richard Basehart interpretation of Adolf Hitler in director Stuart Heisler’s Hitler.

And the last new addition to the release schedule from Warner Home Video this week takes the form of separate DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack (complete with UltraViolet) editions of the made for home entertainment animated feature film, Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon.

Street date for this latest installment in the popular adventure series featuring Shaggy and Scooby-Doo is Feb. 26.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: http://www.dvdreleasereport.com/

Vampire Boys 2: The New Brood From Ariztica Entertainmentl, Mar. 12

Ariztical Entertainment, with an eye towards the possible arrival of the final installment in The Twilight Saga vampire film franchise’s arrival in the home entertainment market place right around Valentine’s Day, has selected Mar. 12 for some vampire action of its own.

Vampire Boys 2: The New Brood will find writers David S. Sterling and Jeremiah Campbell’s Vampire Boys genre-themed creation — with a gay slant — from 2011 returning with the same characters, but with different actors (or, is it “fresh blood”) taking over the key roles of Jasin (Jon Euler), Caleb (Will Branske) and Demetrius (Rob Hoflund).    

Cinematographer-turned-director Steven Vasquez (Sideline Secrets, Be Mine, etc.) takes over for filmmaker Charlie Vaughn (who’s latest, Saltwater, is also due out on DVD from Ariztical Entertainment … street date is Dec. 31).

Not to worry about trying to sort out all of the new faces, the alluring Zasu will return in the pivotal role of Tara once again.  It will certainly be interesting to see which side she finally comes down on … Demetrius or Jasin!

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: http://www.dvdreleasereport.com/