Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Preps DVD • Blu-ray • And 4K Ultra HD Editions Of J Blakeson's The 5th Wave For Delivery On May 3

It looks as though Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is getting whipsawed by either someone within their own organization, by eager retailers in a dog-eat-dog business environment or by factors related to an overly aggressive VOD window strategy that has slipped beyond their control.

In any case, everyone who cares about such things has known for at least the past ten days that director J (short for Jonathan) Blakeson’s film adaptation of Rick Yancey’s sci-fi novel, The 5th Wave, would be released as a three-SKU helping — DVD, Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and 4K Ultra HD/BD Combo Pack (which is a day/date push for the new format) — on May 3.   

It wasn’t until Monday morning, Mar. 14 that this street date became official with a formal press announcement from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.   

The ARR works out to 102 days and ticket sales for this potential franchise launch currently stand at $33.9 million.

As to bonus goodies, all three SKUs include a commentary option from director J Blakeson and the film’s star, Chloë Grace Moretz (Carrie, Kick-Ass, The Equalizer, etc.) and two featurettes — “Inside the 5^th Wave” and “Sammy on the Set.”

Exclusive to the Blu-ray and newly launched 4K Ultra HD SKUs are three additional featurettes — “The 5th Wave Survival Guide,” “Training Squad 53,” “Creating a New World” — a gag reel and deleted scenes.

20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment Times The Release Of DVD And Blu-ray Editions Of Independence Day: 20th Anniversary Edition To Take Advantage Of Independence Day: Resurgence

With a June 24 theatrical release date ready and waiting for director Roland Emmerich’s mega-budget Independence Day: Resurgence — sans Will Smith, but with Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch and Vivica A. Fox  — it was only natural that the good folks over at 20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment would come up with an anniversary edition of the original to take full advantage of all the media hype that will certainly be surrounding this long-overdue alien homecoming. 

Independence Day: 20^th Anniversary Edition, which has a street date of May 3, will be available as a three-SKU array of home entertainment product selections.   

There will be a DVD edition that features a newly restored presentation of the original theatrical cut and two Blu-ray editions.   Both of these double-disc Blu-ray SKUs feature a restored extended-cut of the film (plus the original theatrical cut), with the upscale “Attacker Edition” sporting an on-pack replica of the alien space craft.

The extended cut of the film clocks in at an additional nine minutes of out-of-this-world invasion thrills.  As to other bonus nuggets, there is a 30-minute documentary (exclusive to the Blu-rays) that is titled “Independence Day: A Legacy Surging Forward.”

No word during this initial announcement as to whether or not Independence Day: 20^th Anniversary Edition will get a 4K Ultra HD push.  20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment is one of four studios that currently support the newly launched format.

Vinegar Syndrome Announces A 2K Restoration Of Actor/Director D'Urville Martin’s Dolemite For Delivery As A Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack On Apr. 26

Vinegar Syndrome announced this past week that a 2K restoration (from the original 35mm negative) of actor/director D'Urville Martin’s 1975 iconic Blaxploitation classic, Dolemite, will be available on Apr. 26 as a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack.

Lawrence Woolner, a film producer and long-time associate of Roger Corman, founded Dimension Pictures in 1972 and hit gold with such low-budget productions as The Twilight People, The Doberman Gang and Beyond Atlantis.  

He saw the Blaxploitation trend developing and jumped on it during February of 1975 with director Jack Arnold’s Boss Nigger (starring and written by Fred Williamson) and followed it up with a distribution deal for actor/producer Rudy Ray Moore’s Dolemite.  

It was a monster at the box office (in certain precincts).   But, let’s be frank, Dolomite is an anti-hero film on steroids.   Rudy Ray Moore as the title character (in his film debut — he would reprise his role the following year in The Human Tornado, plus such films as The Monkey Hu$tle and Disco Godfather) is a mega-bucks pimp and actor/director D'Urville Martin’s character (The Legend of Nigger Charley, Black Caesar, Hell Up in Harlem, etc.), Willie Green, is a drug-dealing crime lord.   A match made in heaven.

Bonus features include a vintage commentary track featuring Rudy Ray Moore and biographer Mark Jason Murray, the making-of documentary titled I, Dolemite and two featurettes — “Lady Reed Uncut” and “Locations, Then and Now.”

Flesh For The Inferno Is Now Available On DVD

Now available on DVD ... click here for details:  Flesh for the Inferno

Icarus Films Adds Documentary Filmmaker Justin Webster’s Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez To Its May 10 DVD Release Calendar

Icarus Films announced this past week that documentary filmmaker Justin Webster’s Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez, loving tribute to the life of Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Gabriel “Gabo” García Márquez, has been added to its May 10 DVD release calendar.

Already in place on that date is director Marianne Lambert’s I Don't Belong Here: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman.

Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez had a very limited arthouse run during the fall of last year that generated ticket sales of $14,796 and arrives with an ARR of 221 days.

The Colombian-born literary giant, who was affectionately known as simply Gabo, was a journalist, a screenwriter (a Silver Ariel-winner for his 1979 screenplay, El Ano de La Peste (aka: The Year of the Plague) and renown author, whose works include the best-selling “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (for which he won the Nobel Prize) and “Love in the Time of Cholera.”

Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez is presented in Spanish with English subtitles and features interviews with president Bill Clinton and biographer Gerald Martin.

The Last Ship: The Complete Second Season From Warner Bros. Home Entertainment On May 3

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced this past week that Captain Chandler (Eric Dane) and the crew of the USS Nathan James will return on May 3 in both DVD and Blu-ray 3-disc collections of The Last Ship: The Complete Second Season.    

The second season for this post-apocalyptic thriller was upped to 13 episodes from the first season’s ten-episode cycle … season three episodes begin airing in June, thus the home entertainment launch is well-timed.

Post features include the “Inside the Episodes” viewing feature and a pair of featurettes — “Exclusive Look at Season 2” and “The Making of Season 2.”

Wild Eye Releasing Targets May 10 For The DVD Debut Of Writer/Director Sean K. Robb’s Scars

Meet Scar and Scarlett, beautiful — in a freaky sort of way — sisters by “blood,” who have a penchant for killing “dudes.”   They are serial killers, but they didn’t start out that way.

Scar (Danielle Cole) is a goth; a punk who is perhaps best described as being “adrift” in the world; morose, while Scarlett (Neale Kimmel) is a knockout blonde who uses her brains and dynamite good looks to hustle her marks — she’s a scam artist.   

These seemingly mismatched women are the stars of writer/director Sean K. Robb’s Scars, which will be making its DVD debut on May 10 courtesy of Wild Eye Releasing.

Alone neither Scar nor Scarlett would be what you would call deadly.   Scar would be prone to go “turtle,” while Scarlett’s tendencies lean towards talking — “flirting” — her way out of a jam.   When events — a catalyseur if you will — throw them together they become one … a killing machine with no future, but they are going to enjoy the rush as long as they can.

When the bodies begin to pile up — gruesome, stylistic murders — a local detective, Mike Adams (Matt Wells), is assigned to the case, but we begin to suspect early on that he admires their work and is, perhaps, none too keen to see Scar and Scarlett’s bloody killing spree come to an end.

Filmmaker Sean K. Robb has a keen eye for visuals, which makes Scars something of a cross between a ghastly horror tale and Kabuki theatre … a bloody, visual feast that will certainly please genre fans come May 10.