Team Marketing Selects Feb. 24 As The Street Date For A Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Edition Of The Ohio State University's National Championship Game

After years of insipid intransigence the NCAA finally saw the merits of a national playoff for college football.   The solution of a four-team playoff wasn’t perfect, but the results were nothing short of electrifying.   

The two semi-final games posted record ratings for ESPN, but these records were smashed when the mighty Oregon Ducks took on the underdog Buckeyes from The Ohio State University on January 12, 2015.   All ESPN Bowl audience records were crushed with a record number of 33.4 million viewers … the Bowl Championship Series is an unqualified success.

News arrived within hours of the stunning 42 to 20 blowout of the heavily favored Oregon Ducks by the Buckeyes that Team Marketing will be releasing a DVD/Blu-ray Combo Pack edition of the 2015 BCS National Championship Game on Feb. 24.

But wait!   There’s more!!   Feb. 24 also brings to market DVD/Blu-ray Combo Pack editions of the 2015 Allstate Sugar Bowl — the breathtaking come-from-behind upset of Alabama by The Ohio State University — 2015 Northwestern Mutual Rose Bowl Game (Oregon crushes Florida State), 2015 Goodyear Cotton Bowl (Michigan State stuns Baylor 42-41), 2015 Vizio Fiesta Bowl (Boise State over Arizona 38-30), 2015 Chic-Fil-A Peach Bowl Game (TCU blows-out Ole Miss 42-3) and the 2015 Capital One Orange Bowl (the Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech takes out Mississippi State 49-34).

The Theory Of Everything On DVD And Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack From Universal Studios Home Entertainment On Feb. 17

Someone over at Universal Studios Home Entertainment was up well before dawn on the morning of the Oscar nominations with an announcement at the ready for director James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything.  It will be out as both DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack (with UltraViolet) editions on Feb. 17.  

The Oscar telecast will take place on the following Sunday, Feb. 22, so the timing is spot-on for maximum sales impact.

For the record, the ARR is 102 days and box office receipts currently are on the slight side with just $25.9 million in ticket sales recorded since the film opened during the first weekend of November.   The number of tickets sold will improve dramatically in the next couple of weeks if the studio can somehow add screens to its relatively light rollout of the film (just a little over 400 screens were still active on the morning of the Oscar nominations — the initial launch was just over 1,200 screens).

The Theory of Everything picked up Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking), Best Actress (Felicity Jones as Jane Hawking) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Anthony McCarten for the screen adaptation of Jane Hawking’s book, “Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen”) … all are first time nominees.

Bonus features include commentary from director James Marsh (Oscar-winning for his documentary, Man on Wire), deleted scenes (with optional commentary by Marsh) and the featurette titled “Becoming the Hawkings.”

HBO Home Entertainment's Game of Thrones: The Complete Fourth Season Will Be Available On DVD And Blu-ray This Coming Feb. 17

HBO Home Entertainment has an ambitious Q1’15 first quarter planned, which is highlighted by the Feb. 17 arrival of Blu-ray (4 discs) and DVD (5 discs) sets of the much-anticipated Game of Thrones: The Complete Fourth Season.

Bonus features here include a pair of 30-minute behind-the-scenes featurettes — “Behind the Battle for the Wall” and “The Fallen Roundtable” — episode commentaries, a pair of deleted scenes and three additional (shorter) production featurettes — “Histories & Lore,” “The Politics of Power” and “Bastards of Westeros.”

Arriving one week earlier (Feb. 10) — as both Blu-ray and double-disc DVD product offerings — is the four-part mini-series adaptation of writer Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Olive Kitteridge.   Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins and Bill Murray head the cast with Best Writing Oscar-nominee (The Kids are All Right) Lisa Cholodenko handling the direction.

Shifting to Mar. 31 … we find two series heading home.   First, the debut of Mike Judge’s — the creator of Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill — first live-action cable series, Silicon Valley: The Complete First Season.

Double-disc DVD and Blu-ray SKUs are planned … bonus features include episode commentaries and three production featurettes — “Making Silicon Valley,” “Tech Crunch: Disrupt!” and “The Hacker Hostel.”

Also heading home on Mar. 31 is Veep: The Complete Third Season, starring Emmy-winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus as vice president Selina Meyer … all ten episodes will be available as either double-disc DVD or double-disc Blu-ray product offerings.

Bonus features include deleted scenes and episode commentaries.

20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment's Birdman To Fly Home On Blu-ray And DVD On Feb. 17

Likely to be lost in the rush to take advantage of films nominated for Oscars will be the DVD and Blu-ray (with UltraViolet) launch of writer/director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman.   

The street date will be Feb. 17, which is timed correctly as the Oscar awards telecast is on Feb. 22, but 20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment has taken the position during the past few months that promotional support (publicity, marketing and advertising) for its new theatrical releases headed to the home entertainment market place is simply not necessary. 

If this attitute de l'indifférence complète holds to form, then Birdman will not receive much in the way of a PR effort from 20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment, despite being nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Alejandro González Iñárritu — previously nominated for Babel), Best Actor (Michael Keaton — his first Oscar nomination), Best Supporting Actor (Edward Norton — nominated previously for American History X and Primal Fear), Best Supporting Actress (Emma Stone — her first Oscar nomination) and Best Original Screenplay (Iñárritu, along with Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo).

The ARR for that Feb. 17 street date works out to 123 days and the box office take thus far is light at just $26.3 million.   The film opened last October and is down to just a handful of screens, so improvement on the domestic box office front will be tough to come by.

In what has become an all-too-common pattern for new product announcements emanating from 20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment, there is no word, just yet, on any bonus features that might be included with either the DVD or Blu-ray release of Birdman.

Anchor Bay Entertainment's St. Vincent Will Arrive As DVD And Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Product Offerings On Feb. 17

Anchor Bay Entertainment announced this past week that writer/director (and producer) Ted Melfi's St. Vincent, starring Bill Murray, along with Melissa McCarthy and Naomi Watts, will be heading home as DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack product offerings on Feb. 17.

The ARR is 130 days and domestic ticket sales on the run-up to the Oscar nominations stood at  $47.1 million.

Bonus features are deleted scenes and a Q&A session with actor Bill Murray.

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment To Release Big Hero 6 On DVD And Blu-ray On Feb. 24

The directing team of Don Hall (Winnie the Pooh) and Chris Williams (Bolt) will see DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack editions of their smash animated hit, Big Hero 6, released to retailers on Feb. 24.

The ARR is 109 days and ticket sales were a robust $211.2 million.

Bonus features include the theatrical short film titled Feast, deleted scenes and a pair of production featurettes — “The Origin Story of Big Hero 6: Hiro's Journey” and “Big Animator 6: The Characters Behind the Characters.”

Post-Hack Sees Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Moving Quickly With Blu-ray And DVD Release Dates For The Interview And Annie

If there ever was a bungle mess of a release — either theatrically or to home entertainment — Sony Pictures has easily laid claimed to the prize with its handling of director Evan Goldberg’s (along with star Seth Rogan) The Interview.  It is not even open for discussion … they simply blew it at every step along the way.

Word came down this week that after 53 days in theatrical release The Interview will be made available as both DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack SKUs on Feb. 17 — and at bargain prices to boot.   Ticket sales currently stand at $5.8 million.

There’s no word just yet as to any bonus features that might be included with these home entertainment product offerings.

Also, with no fanfare and a whiff of continued panic over at Sony Pictures, writer/director Will Gluck’s remake of Annie will be rushed to home entertainment as DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack (with UltraViolet) editions on Mar. 10.   

That street date yields an exceptionally fast ARR of just 81 days.  The studio had been holding to 88 days as a minimum window for films grossing in excess of $25 million, but with the infamous hack job and the corporate missteps that have followed it appears that this particular film is being giving the bum’s rush to home entertainment.   

Get it out … and move on, that’s the Sony Pictures motto these days.  Soon there will be a corporate housecleaning, new management will come in at the studio level and these films (from the previous administration) will be written off and quickly forgotten.  

The box office take for Annie is currently at a respectable $79.3 million and there is also no word as to any bonus goodies … which is understandable.