Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Taps Nov. 11 As The Street Date For The Full-Spread Physical Media Launch Of Director Nisha Ganatra's Freakier Friday

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has joined the Nov. 11 physical media release party with the long over-due sequel to director Mark Waters’ 2003 release of Freaky Friday, filmmaker Nisha Ganatra’s Freakier Friday — teaming Jamie Lee Curtis with Lindsay Lohan once again as Tess and Anna Coleman.

 
The ARR stands at 95 days and domestic ticket sales were an impressive $93.8 million.

 
Planned for distribution are stand-alone DVD and Blu-ray editions, plus a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack purchasing option.

 
Bonus delights include ten deleted scenes, the Lindsay Lohan/Julia Butters music video titled “Baby,” and a trio of featurettes — “Making Things Freakier,” “Where Were You When” and “Flashback Friday.”

 

 

Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Loads Up In October With Two Summer Theatrical Hits: Writer/Director Joseph Kosinski's F1: The Movie (Oct. 7) & Filmmaker Zack Cregger's Weapons (Oct. 14)

Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment loads up in October with a pair of recent theatrical hits that are heading to the physical media marketplace.

 
First up, on Oct. 7 is the full-spread physical media rollout of writer/director Joseph Kosinski’s F1: The Movie, starring Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem and Damson Idris.  The configuration of consumer buying choices includes stand-alone DVD and Blu-ray editions, plus two 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Packs (standard and SteelBook).

 
The ARR comes in at 102 days and the domestic box office haul currently stands at $189.5 million.

 
Bonus features for F1: The Movie are limited to the 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray SKUs, which are a whopping nine production featurettes — “Inside the F1: The Movie Table Read,” “The Anatomy of a Crash,” “Getting Up to Speed,” “APXGP Innovations,” “Making it to Silverstone,” “Lewis Hamilton: Producer,” “APXGP Sets and Locations Around the World,” “APXGP and F1: How it was Filmed” and “Sound of Speed.”

 
Arriving the following week, Oct. 14, is writer/director (producer) Zach Cregger’s summer horror hit, Weapons, which will be a full-spread physical media launch.

 

The ARR is a quick-to-market 67 days and the domestic box office gross is an impressive $150.1 million (plus another $114 million in box office receipts overseas) against a reported $38 million production budget.   Can we say “franchise” might have been created here?

 
There is a certain irony in Warner Bros. delivering this New Line Cinema production to the physical media marketplace in 67 days, while Disney has yet to release his 2022 film, Barbarian, on DVD, Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD, despite in pulling in $40.8 million in domestic ticket sales … you can, however, purchase a Blu-ray copy from the vast “Helper” community (our term for pirates, bootleggers, etc.).

 
Genre fans, and consumers in general, will have stand-alone DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD purchasing options for Weapons on Oct. 14.

 
Bonus goodies (limited to 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray editions) are three featurettes — “Director Zach Cregger: Making Horror Personal,” “Weaponized: The Cast of Weapons” and “Weapons: Texture of Terror.”

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Celebrates The 40th Anniversary Of Director Lawrence Kasdan's Silverado With A 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack (SteelBook) Edition On Oct. 7

You could make the argument that the Western, a staple of the movie-going experience from the birth of film, and especially in the immediate post-war period of the late 1940s and 50s, had reached its zenith — as a genre — with the release of Sam Peckinpah’s 1968 masterpiece, The Wild Bunch.

 
To quote Deborah Caulfield, reviewing director Lawrence Kasdan’s Silverado in the Los Angeles Times’ “Calendar Section” just before it opened in July of 1985: “Ironically, ‘Silverado’ opens shortly before the publication of “Final Cut,” the story of the last big-budget Western, ‘Heaven’s Gate,’ by former United Artists executive Steven Bach.”

 
Caulfield continues, “Michael Cimino’s $40-million-plus movie was a financial disaster that led to UA’s absorption by MGM in 1981.”   And then comes this, “Even before ‘Heaven’s Gate,’ Westerns were unpopular at movie studios.  Should this year’s offerings fail to make dents at the box office, the genre could be retired … permanently.”

 

Clint Eastwood hadn’t directed a Western since The Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976, but suddenly within the space of a week or two in 1985 we have Eastwood’s Pale Rider and Kasdan’s Silverado … the Western was back in a big way!   Eastwood’s Unforgiven would arrive in 1992 and win Best Picture (he also won Best Director) ... so the Western, as a genre, was alive and well. 

 
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of this landmark Western, Silverado, on Oct. 7 with the debut of a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack edition.  Make that a SteelBook 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack edition!!
 

This 4K restoration is from the original camera negative and the bonus goodies are housed on the companion Blu-ray disc which features the archived group commentary from film historians Frank Thompson, Paul Hutton and Steve Aaron, plus two vintage featurettes — “A Return to Silverado with Kevin Costner” and “The Making of Silverado.” 

 

 

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Selects Oct. 14 As The Street Date For The Full-Spread Physical Media Launch Of Director Matt Shakman's The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment reveals that Oct. 14 will the physical media launch date for director Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps.  This will be a full-spread delivery featuring two 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Packs (one is a SteelBook edition), plus stand-alone DVD and Blu-ray purchasing options.

 
The ARR is 81 days and the domestic box office haul for this Marvel Studios’ production currently stands at an impressive $272.5 million.   Add in the foreign markets and Disney is looking at $518.8 million in ticket sales!

 
Indeed, the only negative to the rollout of The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the three-week premium VOD window that opens on Sept. 23.   This gives the “Helper” community (aka: pirates, bootleggers, etc.) 21 days to move their own Blu-ray editions (the format of choice) to unsuspecting consumers.

 

On the plus side, the VOD launch date is 60 full days after the theatrical release.  There are some major theatrical releases that find the VOD window opening just 18 days after the theatrical launch (may we say that this is insane) ... anything that closes down this "Helper" activity window is good for the health of the entertainment industry.

 
Bonus goodies kick off with commentary by director Shakman and production designer Kasra Farahani.   There are deleted scenes (five), a gag reel and a trio of production featurettes — “Meet the First Family,” “Fantastic Futurism” and “From Beyond and Below.”

 

 

Liberation Hall Restores The Buster Keaton Show (1949-1950) For Release As Double-Disc DVD And Blu-ray Editions On Sept. 16

Zuma Palmer, entertainment columnist for the Los Angeles Citizen News, wrote on Dec. 26, 1949 about the debut of The Buster Keaton Show on KTTV: “What was done was more important and amusing than what was said.”   Yes!   The “stoned face” comedian could convey more with his face and his timing skills in one instant, than 500 words of dialog could deliver.  

Liberation Hall, with sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, will be release both double-disc Blu-ray and DVD editions of the nine surviving episodes of The Buster Keaton Show for fans to discover on Sept. 16.   

Two of the episodes included in the presentation — Feb. 2 and Feb 23, 1950 — are available for the first time since their broadcast on television 75 years ago.

As to bonus nuggets, both the DVD and Blu-ray selection include two of Keaton’s classic silent short films — The Blacksmith (1922) and The Love Nest (1923) — while exclusive to the Blu-ray release are the CBS television special titled “Three Comedians in Closeup,” the “The is Your Life” episode showcasing the career of Buster Keaton and the 1957 Paul Winchell-hosted episode of Circus Time featuring Keaton.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Will Release The Handmaid's Tale: The Complete Series On DVD This Coming Dec. 2

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has the perfect stocking-stuffer lined up for the Christmas season for fans of Bruce Miller’s episodic series adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s famed 1985 novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”   Miller developed Atwood’s work into a six-season, sixty-six episode award-winning series.

On Dec. 2, fans can purchase The Handmaid’s Tale: The Sixth Season (for those who have been collecting the series on physical media as available) or The Handmaid’s Tale: The Complete Series (the perfect Christmas-season gift for those who enjoyed the series).

This is a 20-disc collection, with bonus features including “Inside the Episode” details.

Arrow Video Presents Solar System Sci-Fi Thrillers With New 4K Ultra HD Editions In November For Outland (Nov. 4) & Red Planet (Nov. 18)

Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has 4K Ultra HD solar system action lined up for genre fans to savor come this November.   So let’s get right to it!

 
Sourced from the original 35mm camera negative and landing (or taking off as the case might be) on Nov. 4 is a newly-minted 4K Ultra HD edition of writer/director Peter Hyams’ 1981 trip to Jupiter’s sulfuric moon Io, Outland, starring an outgunned Sean Connery as a “Federal Marshall.”   

 
In this space Western, Marshall O’Niel (Connery) is set up to fail when he investigates a series of bizarre deaths on the super-productive Con-Am 27 mining operation on Io.  When he discovers the reason, which is directly related to why Con-Am 27 is so profitable, the manager, Mark Sheppard (played by Peter Boyle) calls in a hit team to do away with the pesky Marshall (think: High Noon in space).

 

Bonus features include two commentary options.   The first is an archived commentary with Hyams, and the second features film critic Chris Alexander.   There are also five newly-prepared featurettes included with this 4K Ultra HD presentation from Arrow Video on Nov. 4 — “A Corridor of Accidents,” “Outlandish,” “Introvision: William Mesa on Outland,” “No Place for Heroes” and “Hollywoodland Outland.”

 
The other thriller taking place in our solar system is director Antony Hoffman’s 2000 film release of Red Planet, starring Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, Tom Sizemore and Terence Stamp.  The 4K Ultra HD debut takes place on Nov. 18.

 
Bonus goodies kick off with Cereal at Midnight’s Heath Holland’s newly-prepared visual retrospective titled “Angry Red Planet.”   There are also deleted scenes and two additional featurettes — “The Martian Chronicles” and “Suit Up.”