Last week we commented
that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment seemed to be clearing the decks for some
major theatrical-to-home entertainment announcements with a release blitz of
catalog selections in October that included the unbundling of the previously released
Warner
Bros. Romance Classics Collection (featuring such romantic comedies as Palm
Springs Weekend and Roman Adventure) as stand-alone DVD
editions, a pair of three-film vintage comedy collections — Guy
Kibbee Triple Feature and Glenda Farrell Triple Feature — and
some blu-ray debuts that include The Green Slime and Hell
on Frisco Bay.
As if right on cue,
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment was back this week with the first of the three
summer hits that will be heading home during the fourth quarter of this
year. This would be director David F.
Sandberg’s horror smash, Annabelle: Creation, which will be
available as both DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack editions on Oct. 24.
Box office receipts were
an impressive $101.1 million and making the sequel a bigger draw than the
original. The October of 2014 release
of Annabelle
pulled in $84.3 million.
For the record, the ARR
is a sizzling-quick turn of just 74 days.
That is a new speed record for any theatrical film grossing in excess of
$100 million. Four films had previously
clocked in at 81 days with that minimum level of box office performance — Beauty
and the Beast (Walt Disney, $504 million); Logan (20th
Century-Fox, $226.3 million); Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
(20th Century-Fox, $113.7 million) and Passengers (Sony
Pictures, $100 million).
Clearly, Warner Bros.
wanted to get Annabelle: Creation placed at retail in time for Halloween
promotions.
As to bonus chestnuts,
with the exception of deleted scenes, these are all exclusive to the Blu-ray
SKU. These are commentary by David F.
Sandberg (Lights Out), two short films, Attic Panic and Coffer, plus a pair of
featurettes — “The Horror Continues” and “Directing Annabelle.”
Of note, there are only
three summer A-list theatrical releases (films grossing in excess of $25
million) that have not yet been given their home entertainment orders. Two of these belong to Warner Bros. — Dunkirk
and It
— while Universal Pictures has Despicable Me 3.
This sets up December this year as a very
scant release month, which is reflective of both a very weak summer slate and
the rush to move films from their theatrical venues to the home entertainment
marketplace at ever-quickening rates.
The studios will have to
“borrow” from post-Labor Day releases to fill in the gaps.
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