The cat is out the bag as to the street date for the biggest
grossing film of all time … and it appears to be the result of a breakdown in
communication among the various operating groups within the Walt Disney Studios
organization.
The release date will be Apr. 5 for director J.J. Abrams’ Star
Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens.
The ARR works out to 109 days and domestic ticket sales
currently stand at an out-of-this-world $926 million.
Planned for release on that first street-date Tuesday in
April will be a stand-alone DVD edition and a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack. As of this time, Walt Disney Studios Home
Entertainment has not announced any plans for supporting the newly launched 4K
Ultra HD format, but this would be a very obvious candidate to get that ball
rolling.
Here’s how the home entertainment group was blindsided by
their online cousins at the Disney Store.
If you go to disneystore.com and after the site loads, just click on
“products” and then click on “movies” … and voila! Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
is available to pre-order with a ship date of Apr. 5.
Since such news travels at the speed of light, the Stars
Wars community was all over that offer in a matter of
milliseconds. And since the world of
home entertainment is an extremely competitive one, it was only a matter of
moments before other online retailers quickly jumped into the pre-order frenzy.
Target, for example, began immediately taking pre-orders for
an Apr. 5 ship date with an offer of “exclusive packaging.”
All of this took place before the PR machine over at Walt
Disney Studios Home Entertainment could generate an official announcement.
That official announcement was made at noon eastern time
(9:00AM on the west coast) on Thursday, March 3, which confirmed both the SKU
configuration and the street date of Apr. 5.
This announcement was timed to allow Disney CEO Bob Iger the opportunity
to reveal the home entertainment release date to the company’s stockholders at
the annual meeting in Chicago — you have to wonder if Mr. Iger’s office will be
having a little chat with those at the Disney Store for stealing a bit of his
thunder.
Bonus features include a documentary titled Secrets
of The Force Awakens: A Cinematic Journey, seven production featurettes
— “The Story Awakens: The Table Read,” “Building BB-8,” “Crafting Creatures,”
“Blueprint of a Battle: The Snow Fight,” “John Williams: The Seventh Symphony,”
“ILM: The Visual Magic of The Force” and “Force For Change” — plus deleted
scenes.
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