It looks as though
director Kathryn Bigelow’s Best Picture nominee, Zero Dark Thirty, will be
heading to the home entertainment market place on Mar. 19.
The ARR for Blu-ray/DVD
Combo Pack and DVD editions (both SKUs featuring UltraViolet) works out to a
lightning-quick 88 days … current box office, and still growing, is $83.6
million.
Sony Pictures Home
Entertainment’s stellar publicity department seems to have taken time off for Mardi
Gras and Valentine’s Day festivities this past week and in doing so has failed
to issue any official press announcements (a one-page, poorly-designed,
sell-sheet hardly qualifies).
In the meantime, every
on-line retailer has posted the date (perhaps coming directly from Sony’s sales
group … who are acting in their own best interest). Based on this over-whelming evidence of
retailer activity, Mar. 19 is the date we are going with.
In all fairness (and we
do like to be fair to an organization that wouldn’t know what a screener for
one of their major announcements was used for, even if they sat on it), this
might just be part of an in-house stealth operation to keep the home
entertainment news all hush-hush and below the radar so as not to discourage
potential ticket buyers from heading over to their local multiplex on the
run-up to the Oscar ceremonies on Sunday, Feb. 24.
That is the only logical
explanation. It would be inconceivable
for any home entertainment group to actively suppress the sales and marketing
of a high-profile Best Picture candidate at the height of the Oscar season
(with all that free publicity), unless studio distribution brass have requested
a slow-walk effort until after the Academy Awards to minimize theatrical
exhibition blowback (there are millions of dollars at stake here).
Zero Dark Thirty — with five Oscar nominations, including Best
Picture, Best Original Script and Best Actress (Jessica Chastain) — could
be the ultimate winner (although Argo appears to have a slight edge
right now, with Silver Linings Playbook closing very fast … never count the
Weinsteins out).
If Zero Dark Thirty does
capture Oscar gold for Best Picture, it is well-deserved … and even if only half
of the storyline is accurate (based on an original screenplay by Oscar-nominee
Mark Boal — Oscar-winner for The Hurt Locker), it is both a small
wonder that Osama was ever taken down (talk about your bureaucratic ineptitude)
and a tribute to the professionalism of the SEAL team that took care of
business.
On Sunday, Feb. 17, the
WGA announced their winners, the results of which could signal a head-to-head
duel for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty this next Sunday. They were in separate categories — Original
and Adapted — and they both took home WGA honors.
This double-win appears
to set-up a hold-your-breath Oscar finale as neither director, Kathryn Bigelow or
Ben Affleck, were nominated by the Academy for their work (so no clue will be
forthcoming as to the Best Picture-winner when that Oscar is handed out in the
Best Director category).
Tearing open that final envelope
this year could yield a very big surprise!
This year’s selection of Best Picture candidates features some terrific
films in competition … from blockbusters to dark horses.
It is a vintage
year! Right now there are at least six
different films that still stand a chance of winning Best Picture laurels,
especially if the votes cast among the Academy members are divided.
Based on retailer
information, the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack includes four production featurettes as
the only bonus nuggets — “No Small Feat - Making Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Compound,”
“Targeting Jessica Chastain” and “Geared Up.”
To download this week's
complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report
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