Cleopatra Music And Films Picks June 12 For The Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Release Of Director Darren Bousman’s The Devil’s Carnival

Cleopatra Music and Films, with sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, looks to June 12 for a special edition Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack presentation of director Darren Bousman’s The Devil’s Carnival.

It’s a musical.   It’s a horror show.   And it is a morality play all rolled into one playful presentation … The Devil’s Carnival is The Greatest Showman, only instead of Hugh Jackman as a singing B.T. Barnum, we get the greatest “showman” in the form of Lucifer (played by Terrance Zdunich) and his carnival of sideshow freaks.

Tonight’s bill of fare features three new souls — John (Sean Patrick Flanery), a suicide who could not deal with the grief of losing his son, Ms. Merrywood (Briana Evigan), a thief who does not survive a police shootout, and the foolish Tamara (Jessica Lowndes), a teen with a future who chose a boyfriend with a violent streak.

They awake at the entrance to the strange carnival to find that they each have tickets to enter … no turning back.   It will be a night of torments and visions that none of them will ever forget, with one of the three finding the path to salvation.

The Devil’s Carnival is, as mentioned, a musical … a morality play with your host for the evening, the Devil.   After all, it is his carnival!

Bonus features include commentary from Darren Bousman and the featurette titled “The Making of Devil’s Carnival.”

Mill Creek Entertainment Expands June 5 DVD Release Calendar With Addition Priced-To-Collect Product Offerings

With a special edition Blu-ray presentation of director Phil Joanou’s Gridiron Gang, starring Dwayne Johnson, DVD and Blu-ray collections of The 10^th Kingdom, a knock-your-socks-off Blu-ray collection of nine films for just $14.98 (titled simply, Action 9 Movie Collection) and much, much more already schedule for release on June 5, you would think that Mill Creek Entertainment would be out of June collectible treats … you’d be wrong.

Added to the calendar this week is ten-disc DVD collection priced at just $19.98.   Yes, you read that right, $19.98 for ten DVDs and over 46 hours worth of viewing enjoyment.    Titled Crime Time: Hot Streets & Cool Cops, this winning collection includes Miami Vice: Season One (all 23 episodes from the 1984/85 season starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas) and Knight Rider: Season One (22 episodes from the 1982/83 broadcast season starring David Hasselhoff).

Not done yet!!   Mill Creek Entertainment is also including in the Crime Time: Hot Streets & Cool Cops collection a sampling of 20 vintage detective, mystery and action series.   Twenty!   The smorgasbord of thrills includes such series as Dragnet, Code 3, Mr. & Mrs. North, Racket Squad, Boston Blackie, Decoy and Sky King. 

There are also two additional priced-to-collect movie collections being added to the June 5 mix.   The first (on DVD) is titled 5 Family Favorites and it includes Are We There Yet? (2005, starring Ice Cube in the comedy road trip from hell), director Rob Reiner’s whimsical comedy/adventure, North (1994, starring Elijah Wood, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Last Day of Summer (2007, starring Jansen Panettiere as an 11 year-old kid who wishes that his last day of summer would last just a little bit longer … be careful what you wish for!), The Big Goofy Secret of Hidden Pines (2013, wow, a baby Big Foot … what next?) and Bandit and the Saints of Dogwood (2017, written and directed by Brooks Benjamin … kids, their dog and a treasure map).

The other new film collection in the mix from Mill Creek Entertainment on June 5 is simply titled Action Triple Feature and it includes Vehicle 19 (2013, starring Paul Walker), the very clever comedy caper, Go (1999, directed by Doug Liman and starring Katie Holmes, Sarah Polley, Desmond Askew and Nathan Bexton) and H.B. Halicki’s 1982 pedal-to-the-metal hit, Junkman.

And rounding out the new additions are DVD selections of writer/director Jesse Mast’s Kid West (with Digital Copy) and the mini-series Magical Legend of the Leprechauns (both with Digital Copy).

Paramount Home Media's The Great Summer Campout On DVD This Coming June 12

Paramount Home Media will be teaming up with Nickelodeon on June 12 for summer time animated fun with the DVD release of The Great Summer Campout.

Five summer-themed episodes have been collected from the popular Nickelodeon kid-friendly shows for this unique presentation.   The fun begins with the Bubble Guppies  —Molly, Gil and friends — are off to camp where Gil uses camping skills to rescue Bubble Puppy in the episode titled Bubble Guppies: Summer Camp Games!

Next it is Shimmer and Shine, who are invited over to Rainbow Zahramay for a treehouse sleepover, but Zeta the Sorceress wants to make mischief in Shimmer And Shine: Treehouse Retreat.   And speaking of sleepovers, in Nella the Princess Knight: Dueling Sleepovers, Nella and Trinket find that they’ve accidently double-booked sleepovers on the same night with Garrett and Minatori, where some tricks are played during a scary story told by Nella.

Rounding out the summer fun are Blaze and friends in Blaze and the Monster Machines: Truck Rangers (scouting adventures go topsy-turvy when Crusher mixes things up … and watch out for that skunk!) and Sunny, Rox and Blair go on a camping trip where someone gets lost in the woods in Sunny Day: Wild Styled.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment's Tomb Raider Heads Home On June 12

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced a four-SKU helping this past week of director Roar Uthaug’s reboot of the Lara Croft adventure and gaming series, Tomb Raider — starring Alicia Vikander (Oscar-winner for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Danish Girl, plus Ex Machina, Jason Bourne, Testament of Youth, etc.) as Angelina Jolie’s replacement — for delivery on June 12.

The ARR comes in at 88 days and the domestic box office gross was $56.9 million, which does not bode well for any sequels — not giving anything away, the film ends with hints that more Lara Croft adventures might be in the offing.

As for SKU configuration, there is a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack edition, plus two Blu-ray/DVD Combo Packs — one with a 3D viewing option.   Additionally, there will also be a no frills stand-alone DVD product offering.

Bonus features include four production featurettes — “Tomb Raider: Uncovered,” “Croft Training,” “Breaking Down the Rapids” and “Lara Croft: Evolution of an Icon.”

Also on the release calendar from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is the DVD and Blu-ray arrival on June 5 of director Michael Sucsy’s film adaptation of David Levithan’s fantasy romance novel, Every Day.

The ARR is 102 days and box office receipts were a disappointing $6.1 million.

Levithan’s novel might simply not be a story that translates well to the screen.  That could be one explanation for the poor showing on the film’s close 1,700-screen rollout.   Basically, no one came to see it.

Or, it’s impossible to sell.  The novel was New York Times best-seller, so presumably there was a built-in audience.  They didn’t come.

It is a head-scratcher as Every Day is unique and when you get a film with a unique storyline that should at least be a curiosity item.  

Rhiannon (Angourie Rice — These Final Hours, The Beguiled, Spider-Man: Homecoming) is a high school teenager who is in a meaningless relationship with a fellow student named Justin (Justice Smith).   He’s cute, but self-centered and pretty shallow, but then one day he isn’t … he’s perfect.   The next day Justin is back to his same-old self.

Except Justin wasn’t Justin on the perfect day.   He was inhabited by “A,” that’s right just “A.”   “A” is something of a detached soul that wakes up in a different teenage body — male and female — of basically the same age each new day.

“A,” as it turns out, has fallen in love with Rhiannon — you can see how confusing that can be — and arrives in her life as a new individual each day.   Each actor/actress — and there are over a dozen — that play “A” are obviously different, but they are all the same.

That creates funny bits, amusing bits and sad bits … and an ending that can’t ever be quite right.   In kind of an odd way, maybe Every Day is the anti-social media and anti-electronic device film that delivers a message about human beings interacting one on one, even if the combinations seem unlikely.    

Like we said, it is a curiosity item and that should translate well to the home entertainment marketplace.

As to bonus goodies, there are deleted scenes and a quartet of featurettes — “An A By Any Other Name,” “Love is Love,” “Every Day People” and “Book to Film Adaptation.”

20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment Tabs June 12 For Home Entertainment Debut Of Love, Simon

Becky Albertalli’s award-winning and best-selling novel, “Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda,” which was retitled when it went into film production as simply, Love, Simon, will be making the journey from multiplex venues to the home entertainment marketplace on June 12.

That’s the news from 20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment … more on that in a minute.  

Last week we produced a “Special Edition” of The DVD & Blu-ray Release Report that covered a forthcoming event that will take place on June 12.   That’s the street-date Tuesday when the 52-week ARR moving average drops below the 100-day mark for the first time in the 22-year history of the DVD format. 

The event was triggered and became a date-certain when Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment tagged June 5 as the street date for A Wrinkle in Time (ARR of 88 days) and 20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment teamed with MGM Home Entertainment for the June 5 launch of Death Wish (95 days). 

There was no turning back as the 100-day barrier (which is, of course, completely artificial) would be cracked.   This week, with the simultaneous announcements from Lionsgate Home Entertainment (I Can Only Imagine), Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (Tomb Raider) and the aforementioned arrival of Love, Simon, all on June 12 — and all with ARR values of 88 days — it is as if the “Hollywood” studios have gotten together (in some mysterious place) and said let’s pick up pace and push for 95 days. 

 

All three films opened theatrically on Mar. 16, and all three films have the identical home entertainment release date of June 12.   Is it a coincidence?   The forces of the universe at work … the alignment of the sun, the moon and “Hollywood.”  

O.K. enough of that, back to director Greg Berlanti’s high school romantic dramedy, Love, Simon, starring Nick Robinson as Simon Spier, the gay high school student who gets caught up in a web of secrets that spin around a secret admirer and petty blackmail. 

The ARR, as mentioned, is 88 days and box office receipts were a solid $40.5 million … with that level of box office performance, it seems likely that Albertalli’s latest novel (a sort of sequel), “Leah on the Offbeat” — which just dropped on Apr. 24 — will also find its way to theatrical exhibition.

As for SKU configuration, there will be a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack, a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and a stand-alone DVD edition.

Bonus features include commentary by Greg Berlanti (prolific TV series producer, plus director of Life as We Know It) and producer Isaac Klausner (Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars), deleted scenes and five featurettes — “The Adaptation,” “The Squad,” “#FirstLoveStoryContest,” “Dear Georgia” and “Dear Atlanta.”

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment Selects June 19 For The Release Of DVD And Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Editions Of Midnight Sun

The Open Road Films production of director Scott Speer’s English-language film adaptation of Japanese writer Kenji Bando’s teen romance novel, “Taiyô No Uta,” — which translates roughly as “Song to the Sun” — will be heading to home as DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack offerings on June 19 courtesy of Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Titled for the screen as Midnight Sun, the film focuses on Katie (Bella Thorne), a 17 year-old teen with a rare disease that will ultimately take her life.   Critics hated it (naturally), but audiences who found the film theatrically in its limited release, loved it.   The ARR is 88 days and ticket sales were $9.5 million.

The only bonus nugget is the featurette titled “Midnight Sun: An Inside Look.”

Tyler Perry’s Acrimony (June 26) And I Can Only Imagine (June 12) From Lionsgate Home Entertainment In June

It is always an amusement — the German’s even have a special word for it, Schadenfreude — when a commercial filmmaker, with the track record of Tyler Perry, seems to get so little respect from the studio that he has help build with his numerous successful film productions.   

Without any fanfare, Lionsgate Home Entertainment has picked June 26 as the street date for DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack editions of his latest hit film, Tyler Perry’s Acrimony, starring Taraji P. Henson (Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Queenie in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) as a woman who slowly becomes unhinged … homicidal!

The ARR is just 88 days and box office receipts currently stand at a healthy $42.2 million.

The only bonus goodie included with Tyler Perry’s Acrimony is the featurette title “Unleashing Acrimony.”

The Schadenfreude continues with the home entertainment distribution effort being put into the Roadside Attractions’ production of the Erwin Brothers’ (Andrew and Jon) faith-based monster, I Can Only Imagine.   Again, without any excitement or fanfare, June 12 will be the street date for both DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack editions.

The ARR is, like Tyler Perry’s Acrimony, just 88 days — which could be a major factor in the seeming lack of enthusiasm that accompanies release announcements these days from Lionsgate Home Entertainment.   Perhaps they just can’t get all those ducks lined up in so short a window.   

In any case, I Can Only Imagine flew in under the radar theatrically with only a projected modest opening in the $2 million to $4 million range, but when the opening weekend dust settled over $17 million in ticket sales had been recorded.   Current box office receipts stand at $81.1 million.  

That level of word-of-mouth and a non-traditional audience flocking to theatres to enjoy the story behind Bart Miller and MercyMe’s all-time best-selling Christian hit single, “I Can Only Imagine,” makes it all the more puzzling that so little effort is being put behind the home entertainment launch.   There is an audience out there waiting to snap up DVD and Blu-ray copies on June 12 and Lionsgate Home Entertainment should be out beating the promotional drum on this one.

Indeed, as the sun went down on Friday, May 4, Lionsgate Home Entertainment had yet to post press releases and cover art files at the company’s online PR site for either Tyler Perry’s Acrimony or I Can Only Imagine … titles like Spinning Man, Frat Pack and Paws P.I. were up there.   Nothing for Tyler Perry’s film and nothing for the Roadside Attractions’ production of I Can Only Imagine.

As to bonus goodies, filmmakers Jon and Andrew Erwin (October Baby, Woodlawn, Mom’s Night Out, etc.) provide commentary, plus there are deleted scenes and seven featurettes — “MercyMe: The Early Days,” “Imagine Forgiveness with Bart Millard,” “Casting I Can Only Imagine,” “The Power of the Song,” “Creating Imagine,” “The Music of Imagine” and “Dennis Quaid: On My Way to Heaven.”