Steven Spielberg's Lincoln Parachutes In On Mar. 26

It could be studio politics — that seems to make the most sense — as the third Best Picture candidate this season has suffered the same fate as its brethren by simply being parachuted into the home entertainment market place without fanfare.

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will be handling the domestic distribution of director Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln on behalf of DreamWorks Pictures and Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (the studio producing partners).   News surfaced today (mainly online retailers rushing to take orders) that a release date has been revealed … if not formally announced.

With so many cooks in the kitchen it is completely understandable that the non-announcement for the Mar. 26 release of the two Blu-ray/DVD Combo Packs and the stand-alone DVD edition is already beyond the likely pre-book cutoff (which was, as we figure it, a couple of weeks ago).   With so many sign-offs required, getting the simplest thing done — oh, like a two-page press announcement — can turn into a logistical nightmare.   Anyone seen a sell-sheet?

It is like: Ready!  Fire!!  Aim!!!   Oops.   

We suspect — and this suspicion is only based on years of experience with how studio egos work — that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment was trapped with Zero Dark Thirty (between conflicting theatrical and home entertainment needs) and that Harvey and Bob Weinstein had their fingers in the Django Unchained home entertainment bungled launch.  

Staffers over at Disney don’t just move ahead with a Steven Spielberg movie without all of the eyes being dotted and all of the tees being crossed … so they too have had to just sit there, wait and watch the non-event unfold.   Park the egos at the door, please.

For the record, the ARR of that Mar. 26 rollout comes in at 137 days and the domestic box office gross was a lovely (and profitable) $180.1 million.

Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln, the movie, stands or falls on the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis.   He is absolutely stunning as the 16^th President of United States … if there were newsreels, or videos, or movies from 1865, this is the human being that you would expect to see and hear.   His Oscar for Best Actor was well-deserved!

The film is not Steven Spielberg’s best work (that’s a tough nut to ever crack when you consider his body of work to date), but that’s probably the result of the choices made for the focal point of the narrative itself.   The political ins and outs of getting the 13^th Amendment through a lame-duck Congress (one that already rejected it previously) — while the Civil War grinds on — can get pretty thick.   

As to bonus features for Lincoln, the DVD SKU has the featurette titled “The Journey to Lincoln.”   As mentioned, there are a pair of Blu-rays, both are Combo-Packs (with Digital Copy), with the only difference is that one contains an additional Blu-ray disc showcasing four extended production featurettes — “In The Company of Character,” “Crafting The Past,” “Living With Lincoln” and “In Lincoln's Footsteps.”  Featured on both Blu-ray presentations is the additional featurette titled “A Historic Tapestry: Richmond, Virginia.”

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