Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Makes It Official • Writer/Director James Mangold’s Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny Heads Home On Dec. 5 As A Full-Spread Of Physical Media Product Offerings

One of the most pirated movies of the year finally gets a legitimate physical media release date.   Back in mid-August, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment announced an Aug. 29 digital window for writer/director James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  

 

What was lacking in that announcement was any mention of a street date for DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD editions.  One of the biggest movies of 2023 was being shunned in the physical media arena … that seemed odd, very odd.   

 

Of course the “helpers” (pirates, bootleggers, etc.) were all over it, even to the point of soliciting pre-orders for Blu-ray and DVD editions of the film.

 

The wait is finally over, official copies from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment — stand-alone DVD and Blu-ray selections, plus a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack edition — will be available on Dec. 5.

 

The ARR works out to 158 days.   Domestic box office receipts topped out at $174.5 million. 

  

The “helpers” enjoyed at 90-day free reign on selling professionally packaged Blu-ray (and DVD) editions to consumers (unsuspecting or not) who wished to add Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny to their Harrison Ford/Indiana Jones film libraries.

 

As to bonus goodies, which are limited to the Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD SKUs, there is an isolated music track featuring John Williams’ score of the film, plus a five-part “making-off” feature titled “The Making of Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny” — “Prologue,” “New York,” “Morocco,” “Sicily” and “Finale.”

Arrow Video Targets Dec. 5 For The Blu-ray Debut Of Director John Schlesinger’s The Day Of The Locust

Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has tabbed Dec. 5 for the Blu-ray debut of director John Schlesinger’s 1975 film adaptation of Nathanael West's 1939 “Hollywood” novel, The Day of the Locust.

 

This is a new 2K restoration (“remastered”) from the original camera negative.

 

There is so much to admire about this deeply flawed film vision from Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man, Sunday Bloody Sunday).   Topping that list is Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces, Cisco Pike, The Great Gatsby, Nashville, Family Plot) as Faye Greene.  She proved beyond a doubt that she was not only an exotic beauty, but a genuine acting talent.

  

There were over a half-dozen major names lined up for the role and one point or another during pre-production, but she won the part with her screen test.   She’s brilliant here … come to The Day of the Locust for this reason alone.

 

Another is Donald Sutherland as “Homer Simpson” (classic), who is literally off the charts.   Creepy.  Insane.  His desire for Faye makes your skin crawl … and what he does to the tormenting “child” actor, Adore Loomis (played by Jackie Earl Haley), is both perverse, and yet, justified.  

 

The details in The Day of the Locust are stunning.   You feel like you are watching actual events unfold in Hollywood of the 1930s.   To that point, Conrad Hall was nominated for the Oscar for Best Cinematography (he was nominated a total of ten times in his career, winning Oscars for Road to Perdition, American Beauty and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).

 

Bonus features included on the Blu-ray release from Arrow Video begins with commentary hosted by writer and film historian Lee Gambin (“Massacred by Mother Nature: Exploring the Natural Horror Film,” “We Can be Who We Are: Movie Musicals of the 1970s”), who is joined by assistant directors Leslie Moulton Asplund and Charles Ziarko, production associate Michael Childers and actors Grainger Hines and Pepe Sema.

 

Additional bonuses include image galleries (behind the scenes and more), plus three production featurettes — “Welcome to West Hollywood,” “Days of the Golden Age” and “Jeepers Creepers, Where’d You Get Those Peepers.”

 

 

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment Selects Oct. 17 For The Release Of DVD And Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Offerings Of Director André Øvredal’s The Last Voyage Of The Demeter

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment will be moving director André Øvredal’s Bram Stoker inspired Dracula horror tale, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, to the physical media marketplace on Oct. 17 as both DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack product offerings.

The ARR works out to 67 days and domestic box office receipts were $13.6 million.

Bonus features include commentary with director André Øvredal (Troll Hunter, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), who is joined by producer Bradley J. Fischer (The Tomorrow War, Transformer: Rise of the Beasts, Slender Man), plus an alternate opening (also with commentary), eight deleted scenes (with optional commentary) and a trio of featurettes — “From the Pits of Hell: Dracula Reimagined,” “Evil is Aboard: The Making of the Last Voyage of the Demeter" and "Dracula in the Digital Age."

Bayview Entertainments Gears Up For The Halloween Season With Mark Wolfe And Kerry McArthur The Orchard • Writer/Director Terry Jarrell’s Harlow’s Haunt • Both On Blu-ray On Oct. 17

Bayview Entertainment has a pair of new-to-Blu-ray films lined up for delivery on Oct. 17 that will have genre fans eagerly awaiting the chills and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night thrills associated with films of this ilk that are timed for release during the Halloween season.

 

So let’s get to it!   First up, from the filmmaking team of Mark Wolfe and Kerry McArthur, is The Orchard, starring Lucas Szuch as Lucas Bauer, a young man who inherits his grandfather’s orchard in the Kootenay’s area of British Columbia (filming took place in and around Creston).   It is something of a blessing for Lucas, who is a recovering addict … he is clean now and this gift gives him a chance to start anew.

 

However, there’s something odd about the locals.   It’s as if they have a secret, and since Lucas is a newcomer he’s not ready for it.   Or, maybe they are just reserved and in time they will be more open.   

 

That’s how Wolfe and McArthur have set up the early part of the story.   There is a sense of uneasiness — anxiety — in how Lucas navigates his new surroundings … a mystery that deepens as events unfolds.   The Orchard is subtle in the opening stanza and plays more like an arthouse horror tale, dark and foreboding.  Not a blood-and-guts shocker (that will come).   

 

Indeed, once completed the film worked the festival circuit, with stops at the Bridge Fest, the Crown International Film Festival, Mannheim Arts and Film Festival … even screening at the 2022 SIFF (Swedish International Film Festival).   On Blu-ray this coming Oct. 17 for those who were not lucky enough to attend one of the festival screening.

 

Things are set in motion when Lucas, while tending the orchard, has an accident.   This will bring his past crashing back and turn the enjoyment of his newfound life into a horror tale … the addiction is back.   The “secret” will be revealed!!

 

Joining The Orchard on Blu-ray on Oct. 17 is writer/director Terry Jarrell’s Harlow’s Haunt.

 

We heard about the acquisition of this Black Dog Filmz production by Bayview Entertainment this past February and couldn’t help but wonder when it would surface on Blu-ray.   We now know the answer to that … a horror tale timed for Halloween.   Perfect!

 

Jarrell’s haunted house thriller — literally, a haunted house thriller — complete with your victim pool, worked the festival circuit for a solid year.   Over 100 festival stops during that year-long period —both domestic and international — so the film has the reviews, the awards and the built-in awareness to be a genre hit when it arrives in the home entertainment marketplace later this moth.

 

Also going for it is the name recognition of John Dugan — The Texas Chain Saw Massacre — who plays Harlow Greer, the “founder” of the attraction alluded to in the film’s title.   Dugan gets to have fun with this role — it’s a hoot and a half.

 

The story unfolds over two timelines.   The first takes place in the mid-1920s, with Dugan/Harlow setting up the reasons for the evil that is unleashed and the horror that will unfold in the present day.   

 

The second storyline features our collection of haunted attraction visitors (the victim pool), who are friends (with a backstory), who fall victim to a force that they unleashed years before … the payment for what they did has come due (in blood).   It turns out that all those wild tales about Harlow Greer way back in the day are true, and not just fairy tales to sell tickets to eager customers out for a few harmless thrills.   

 

Mark the date the down, Oct. 17, for the Blu-ray debut of both The Orchard and Harlow’s Haunt from Bayview Entertainment.

 

 

 

Mill Creek Entertainment On The Cutting Edge With The Nov. 14 DVD And Blu-ray Rollout Of Writer/Director Andrew Hyatt's The Blind: The True Story of the Robertson Family

Mill Creek Entertainment has selected Nov. 14 as the street date for DVD and Blu-ray editions of writer/director Andrew Hyatt’s faith-based biopic, The Blind: The True Story of the Robertson Family.

 

The ARR is a quick-to-market 46 days and the domestic box office take (not counting church-based screenings) was $5.2 million.

 

This is a trendsetter that the entertainment industry would be wise to take notice of.   So before we get into the details about the film itself, it is important that we spend just a little bit of time talking about the shifting landscape.

 

Here goes.   The traditional “Hollywood” studios spent 100 years building an ultra-dominate theatrical distribution network.   They controlled everything … all of the blockbuster were theirs.

 

And then along came the Covid pandemic.   And they went all-in on streaming.  

 

One hundred years and the gold mine of physical media (you know, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD) were cast aside in a rush to lose billions of dollars on the folly of streaming.   A business model that doesn’t work and in the process has put the release pace for DVD and Blu-ray in the “alternative market space” on steroids … pristine masters of new movies (and series programming) are being offered to “helpers” (old school: pirates, bootleggers, etc.) without consequences.

 

Consumers have a hunger for things they like and the studios have shunned them.

 

A case in point is director Alejandro Monteverde’s Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel, which Disney tried to bury when it acquired 20th Century-Fox.   Monteverde, Caviezel and producer Eduardo Verastegui were able to re-acquire their film and hooked up with Angel Studios to handle the theatrical distribution.  

 

Disney threw it away and the film grossed $184 million.   Indie films without studio support don’t gross these numbers unless there is a consumer demand that is not being fulfilled.   

 

On Oct. 13, recording artist Taylor Swift is going to do the same thing.   Her Eras Tour concert is bypassing the traditional studios for a worldwide theatrical event … according to the industry trade publication The Hollywood Reporter (Oct. 08 Twitter feed) advanced ticket sales just passed the 100 million dollar mark.   

 

The traditional “Hollywood” studios have created a vacuum … nature abhors a vacuum, so the result is a giant “work-around,” which brings us back full-circle to Mill Creek Entertainment DVD and Blu-ray launch of The Blind: The True Story of the Robertson Family.

 

There’s not a “Hollywood” studio that would touch a faith-based biopic about Phil Robertson (played by Aron von Andrian — Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Purple Beatz) — before the Duck Dynasty fame — and his wife Kay (Amelia Eve — The Haunting of Bly Manor, Shadowland, The Darkness).  A film about faith, failure, family and redemption … not a chance that it would get distribution.

 

So this indie film got creative and did a national Fathom Events theatrical launch on Sept. 28.

 

The only way you get people into theatres is by word of mouth when you go that route.   Churches and social media … they are not the traditional “Hollywood” multi-million dollar advertising and PR approach to launch a film.  

 

The Blind: The True Story of the Robertson Family pulled in $5.4 million … that will put the production into the black.   That’s more than the traditional “Hollywood” studios can say about many of their big budget productions this year — FYI, Sound of Freedom out-grossed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and they opened theatrically the same week.

 

Things appear to be changing, and Mill Creek Entertainment with the release of filmmaker Andrew Hyatt’s The Blind: The True Story of the Robertson Family on both DVD and Blu-ray on Nov. 14, appears to be on the cutting edge of this tectonic shift.

 

Bonus goodies include deleted scenes and the featurette titled “The Story Behind The Blind from the People Who Lived It.”

 

 

 

     

Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Celebrates The 30th Anniversary Of Director Andrew Davis' The Fugitive On Nov. 21 With A New 4K Ultra HD Release

Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of director Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, on Nov. 21 with the release of a newly-minted 4K Ultra HD edition.

It’s always fascinating how films get made.   In the case of this film adaptation of the popular 1960s television series starring David Jansen, producer Arnold Kopelson — who won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1987 for Platoon — started working a film version right after Platoon, but couldn’t quite put it together.  

He ended up producing five films during that period (Fire Birds, Falling Down, etc.) while The Fugitive “cooked” — both Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liaisons) and Walter Hill were attached to direct at different points, and Alec Baldwin had been lined up to play Dr. Kimble.  

Finally, everything fell into place with Davis directing (fresh from Under Siege) and Harrison Ford in the lead … The Fugitive was not only a smash hit, but it was nominated for Best Picture, along with five technical Oscars and a Best Supporting Actor win for Tommy Lee Jones.   Kopelson may have taken five years, but he got it right!!

Bonus features include an introduction to the film by Harrison Ford and Andrew Davis, commentary by Davis and Tommy Lee Jones and a trio of featurettes — “The Fugitive: Thrill of the Chase,” “On the Run with the Fugitive” and “Derail: Anatomy of a Train Wreck” (yes, the train wreck was a real, not CGI).

VCI Entertainment's New 4K Film Restoration Of Director Julio Buchs' A Bullet For Sandoval Heads Home As New DVD And Blu-ray Product Offerings On Nov. 07

VCI Entertainment has tabbed Nov. 7 as the street date for the new 4K film restoration of director Julio Buchs’ 1969 (domestic, 1970) Spaghetti Western, A Bullet for Sandoval, teaming Ernest Borgnine with Spaghetti Western superstar George Hilton.

 

Both DVD and Blu-ray editions will be available.   Restored from the original 35mm negatives and featuring two versions of the film — the English-dubbed theatrical release and a Spanish-language version that clocks in with an extra ten minutes worth of footage.

 

After Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood and Rick Dalton’s (DiCaprio) monologue about making Spaghetti Westerns in Europe, one can’t help but imagine the conversation that took place between Ernest Borgnine and his agent after The Wild Bunch was released in 1969.   Borgnine’s very next film saw him jetting off to Spain to film A Bullet for Sandoval, a classic Spaghetti Western.

 

He was teamed up with George Hilton (aka: Jorge Hill Acosta y Lara), who was starring in one action film after another during the period (every other month there was something new hitting theatres worldwide).

 

The film itself is somewhat anachronistic in that Hilton plays a rebel soldier by the name of John Warner, who, with the help of his friends, deserts the cause and heads south to Mexico to be with his mistress, Rosa, who is about to give birth to their child.   It was all about the action — of which there is plenty — with little regard for the common weaponry for the period (Civil War versus 1880s).

 

That aside, Warner arrives too late, Rosa died during childbirth … and soon the child will die as well.   This sets up a revenge tale against Rosa’s father, Sandoval (Borgnine as the heavy, but a grieving father nonetheless) and anyone else who hit a part in the tragedy. Warner reunites with his buddies to form an “outlaw” gang, is eventually double-crossed (bounty on his head) and must face Sandoval.

 

The extended Spanish-language cut (with English subtitles) may fill in some of the gaps — Rosa, Warner’s Confederate commander out to bring him to justice, etc. … all seem to have been trimmed for the shorter domestic theatrical cut of the film.

 

Bonus features, in addition to the two view options, include commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox.