Paramount Home Entertainment announced this past week that a summer-long 4K Ultra HD promotion spotlighting the Indiana Jones theatrical adventures will kick off on June 14 with a 4K Ultra HD Steelbook edition of director Steven Spielberg’s summer of 1981 box office smash, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Way, way back in 1975 George Lukas sat down with fellow filmmaker Philip Kaufman and came up with “The Adventures of Indiana Smith,” an archeologist with a flair for action and adventure, who was trying to find the Ark of the Covenant.
By 1977 Lukas had corralled Steven Spielberg as the potential director, who in turn suggested that a promising screenwriter by the name of Lawrence Kasdan should be brought on board to work on the script. By the summer of 1978 a pretty good script was in place and then everything was put on hold.
When this all got put into motion a “little” film from George Lukas was just rolling out theatrically … and it turned out to be a film-franchise-making blockbuster, Star Wars. So, Kasdan was assigned the sequel (The Empire Strikes Back) and the quest of this Smith fellow from Indiana would have to wait.
Eventually it all came together. Indiana Smith became Indiana Jones, and Tom Selleck would star with Amy Irving, who was in a relationship with Spielberg at the time. But Selleck landed the Magnum P.I. series, so Lukas’ go-to guy, Harrison Ford got the part … the Spielberg/Irving relationship went up in flames, thus a relatively unknown actress by the name of Karen Allen took her place. The rest is history!!
Of note, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom follows as a 4K Ultra HD edition on July 12, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade will be the August entry (Aug. 16) and in September (Sept. 20) look for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
In other release news this week from Paramount Home Entertainment, director Tarik Saleh’s The Contractor, starring Chris Pine, will be making a swift-to-market transition on June 7.
The ARR is just 67 days and box office receipts for this STX pick-up by Paramount currently stand at $962,708 from the film’s limited theatrical run (it also played day/date on Paramount+).
Planned for release are stand-alone, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD editions.
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