Mill Creek Entertainment Kicks Off The Month Of May With A Four-Film Blu-ray Collection Of John Travolta Films On May 1

Mill Creek Entertainment announced its first wave of priced-to-collect DVD and Blu-ray product offerings for the month of May this past week.

Leading the parade of collectibles is the double-disc Blu-ray release of the John Travolta: 4-in-1 Drama Collection.   The SRP for this four-film collection of films starring John Travolta is just $14.98 (and that’s before discounts being offered up by retailers).

The timing for this collection, May 1, is spot-on as Paramount will be promoting the 40^th anniversary of Grease the week before (Apr. 24) with the release of a new 4K restoration the John Travolta/ Olivia Newton-John musical as newly-minted Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD editions.  

Included in the John Travolta: 4-in-1 Drama Collection is director James Bridges’ 1985 cult film, Perfect, featuring Travolta as a Rolling Stone reporter who hits upon the idea of a story about fitness clubs as the new hook-up places for romance.   Jamie Lee-Curtis is an instructor at “The Sport Connection” and she is at first leery of his motives, but romance — after some difficult beginnings — soon develops between the two.   

The twist comes when he writes a fair-minded story, but is double crossed by the editor at Rolling Stone, which publishes a hit piece while he is on assignment outside of the country!  

Up next in this collection is director John McTiernan’s 2003 mystery/thriller, Basic, which teams Travolta once again with his Pulp Fiction co-star, Samuel L. Jackson.   Here, Travolta is a DEA agent assigned to a case with Connie Nielsen to investigate the disappearance of Jackson — a rogue sergeant in the Army — on a seemingly routine training mission.   There’s a great twist at the end.

The other two films in the collection are writer/director Shainee Gabel’s 2005 film adaptation of the Ronald Everett Capps’ novel, A Love Song for Bobby Long (with Scarlett Johansson), and writer/director Todd Robinson’s true-life crime drama, Lonely Hearts, featuring James Gandolfini, Laura Dern, Jared Leto and Salma Hayek.

Dark Entity Music's SGL Entertainment Label To Release Writer/Director Mark Savage's Stressed To Kill On Blu-ray On Apr. 10

Concord, California-based Dark Entity Music will be releasing Aussie-born writer/director Mark Savage’s unhinged crime thriller, Stressed to Kill, on Blu-ray this coming Apr. 10.   It will be released under the company’s SGL Entertainment label, with MVD Entertainment Group guiding the sales and distribution effort.

Bill Oberst Jr. is one of the busiest character actors in films these days as he is able to blend his natural acting talent with a “great face.”   When you are the great-grandson of Lon Chaney, having a “great face” is a family honor and a mark of distinction.  

When he is the lead, his films often garner awards and genre-fan raves — Circus of the Dead, Deadly Revisions and Coyote are just a few examples.  With Stressed to Kill, Oberst stars as Bill Johnson, a seeming milquetoast man,  who is on the road to recovery from a massive heart attack brought on by stress.  It’s not hard to pinpoint the stress points in his life — his wife Vera (Sonia Curtis) being chief among them.   

During a follow-up visit with his doctor (Tom Parnell), our hero is given some medical advice that he takes to heart … “Eliminate stress from your life.”  He does just that, if you cross Bill’s path and stress him out after this bit of advice from his doctor, he zaps you with a poison dart.   Problem solved!

His best buddy, Stan (Marshal Hilton — The Bunnyman Massacre, The Raking, etc.), is taken back by Bill’s solution, but he will eventually come around to seeing the advantages of having an unhinged serial killer as a best friend.

Another “fan” who takes notice of Bill’s work as the “Dartman” killer is Detective Paul Jordan (played by Armand Assante), who has his own crew of street-justice killers (court can be such a waste of time).   He is so ramped up in his mission that he makes Bill seem like a reasonable guy, who is just working out stress issues.

Filmmaker Mark Savage’s Stressed to Kill becomes a delightful cat-and-mouse game between Jordan and Bill, with Stan knowing full well that he too will be six-feet under if the two of them can’t come up with a very clever plan to get Jordan — who is torn between making Bill a member of his crew or turning him in — off their back.   After all, he is stressing Bill out and the doctor said, “Eliminate stress from your life.”

Bonus goodies for this nifty blend of horror and black comedy include deleted scenes and two commentary options.   The first features filmmaker/producer Mark Savage (Sensitive New Age Killer, Defenceless: A Blood Symphony, etc.) and the second with cinematographer David Richardson (winner of Best Cinematography at the 2016 Melbourne Underground Film Festival for his work here).

Cleopatra Music And Films Picks Apr. 24 For The DVD Debut Of Writer/Director Sean Else's Blood And Glory

Cleopatra Music & Films, with sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has picked Apr. 24 for the DVD debut of writer/director Sean Else’s brutal war drama, Blood and Glory.

Set during the Anglo-Boer War and based on actual events (think: Breaker Morant), we are introduced to Boer farmer and fighter Willem Morkel (Stian Bam), who loses his wife and child to marauding British soldiers.   He is taken captive and like his fellow Boers, he is shipped off to St. Helena Island, the most remote populated island on the planet (in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between South Africa and Argentina) — the same place that Napoleon was shipped off to nearly a century earlier.   And like Napoleon, the Boer prisoners figured that they would meet the same fate there … death.

In interviews, South African filmmaker Sean Else took the events of St. Helena — where at one point over 9,000 prisoners were held in absolutely deplorable conditions — and blended actual historical figures to create his characters.  

There are three storylines intertwined in Blood and Glory, with the first being that Morkel, who Else based on South African rugby legend Dougie “Sommie” Morkel, which leads us to the second element, rugby and how it became ingrained in South African culture as a result of the events that took place on St. Helena in 1901 and 1902.   

The third storyline is that of “witness” Katherine Sterndale (Charlotte Salt), who, according to Else, is a blend of Emily Hobhouse (a British women who exposed the harsh treatment of Boer women and children in camps run by the British) and Emmiline Pankhurst (a famed British Suffragette who actively campaigned against British imperialism during this period).

Once Morkel arrives at St. Helena, he comes into conflict with the British prison commander, Colonel Swannell (played by Grant Swanby), whose demeanor and treatment of the Boer prisoners is larger drawn from the real Breaker Morant.   

Morkel has nothing to lose — he is defeated — with his wife and child murdered, but when a fellow prisoner is to be executed, he offers the Colonel a deal … if the Boer prisoners can defeat the superior British rugby team, his life will be traded for the condemned man.    Swannell, goes him one better — Boers win, you die; British win, you both die.

He gives the prisoners 30 days to build a team, knowing full well what the outcome will be.   History has a strange way of taking the impossible and making legends … Blood and Glory is such a story.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Preps Writer/Director Paul King's Paddington 2 For The DVD And Blu-ray Launch On Apr. 24

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has selected Apr. 24 for the home entertainment launch of writer/director Paul King’s Paddington 2.   DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack editions will be available.

The ARR for this follow-up to King’s 2014 film franchise launch with Paddington works out to 102 days and domestic box office receipts currently stand at $39.8 million … a third installment has been announced, but the future theatrical release date is still a work in progress. 

In this fun-filled adventure, the loveable teddy bear named Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw — The Hollow Crown, Cloud Atlas, A Hologram for the King, etc.) is wrongly accused of stealing a valuable book and it falls to his adopted family, the Browns (Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins), to become detectives.   We, as the audience, know it is the dastardly Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant), but proving it is going to be rough sledding … and only the last-minute help of an unlikely hero saves the day!

Bonus features include commentary by writer/director Paul King (Come Fly With Me, The Mighty Boosh), a music video with Phoenix Buchanan and a half-dozen featurettes — “Paddington: The Bear Truth,” “How to Make A Marmalade Sandwich,” “The Magical Mystery of Paddington’s Pop-Up Book,” “The Browns and Paddington: The Special Bond,” “Knuckles: A Fistful of Marmalade” and “The (Once) Famous Faces of Phoenix Buchanan.”

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment To Release Director Ridley Scott's All The Money In The World On Apr. 10

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment was busy with a swarm of new product announcements this past week, including director Ridley Scott’s troubled film adaptation of the John Pearson book “Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty,” which was mercifully retitled for the screen as All the Money in the World.   It will be available on Apr. 10 as DVD and Blu-ray editions.

During the middle of the production the Kevin Spacey controversy erupted and he was replaced, with all of his scenes as J. Paul Getty scraped (would love to see those dailies) and reshot with Christopher Plummer (he received his third acting Oscar nomination for his performance).  

For the record, the ARR is 106 days and ticket sales currently stand right at $25 million.

Bonus features include 8 deleted scenes (hoping these are of Kevin Spacey) and a trio of production featurettes — “Ridley Scott: Crafting a Historical Thriller,” “Hostages to Fortune: The Cast” and “Recast, Reshot, Reclaimed.”

Also getting both Blu-ray and DVD product offerings in April is director Babak Najafi’s hitwoman crime thriller, Proud Mary, starring Taraji P. Henson as a professional assassin who begins to have second thoughts about her career choice.   The street date will be Apr. 3.

The film got a bungled theatrical launch — home entertainment to the rescue once again — which means that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is moving it quickly from theatres to the home entertainment marketplace with a zippy-quick ARR of just 81 days.  Ticket sales were a lackluster $20.8 million.

Bonus goodies for Proud Mary are three featurettes — “Mary’s World,” “The Beginning of The End” and “If Looks Could Kill.”

Lastly, look to May 22 for two new 4K restorations that will be available as 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack selections.

The first up is director Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger and Jason Isaacs as one of the screen’s nastiest villains.   And the second 4K launch is writer/director David Ayer’s World War II tank thriller, Fury, starring Brad Pitt.

Director Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman From 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment On Apr. 10

First time director Michael Gracey scored a thunderous hit at the box office with the biopic, The Greatest Showman, starring Hugh Jackman as big top showman P. T. Barnum.   With $160.8 million in domestic ticket sales, you can expect Gracey to have full access to all the production assets he may require for his next few projects!

20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment announced this past week that DVD, Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack selections of The Greatest Showman will be available on Apr. 10.

That street date yields an ARR of 109 days.

Bonus features include two hours worth of behind-the-scenes footage, a sing-along viewing option and a music machine “jukebox.”

Lionsgate Home Entertainment Tabs Apr. 24 For The Home Entertainment Launch Of Writer/Director Scott Cooper’s Hostiles

After a few rough weeks over at Lionsgate Home Entertainment with getting timely press announcements out for the likes of A24 Films’ Oscar-contenders, Lady Bird (Mar. 6) and Disaster Artist (Mar. 13), as well as their own theatrical release of director Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Commuter (Apr. 17), they were finally back on track this week with a timely announcement for the Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures’ production of writer/director Scott Cooper’s Hostiles.

Consumer choices on Apr. 24 will be a stand-alone DVD edition, a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack selection and a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack.   The ARR works out to 123 days and ticket sales currently stand at $29.1 million.

This anachronistic Western, starring Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike falls into the Lionsgate Home Entertainment release network as the result of Byron Allen’s 2016 distribution deal with Anchor Bay Entertainment, which was subsequently acquired by Lionsgate.   

Bonus goodies include a three-part making-of documentary titled A Journey to the Soul: The Making of Hostiles, plus three featurettes — “Provenance,” “Removing the Binds” and  “Don’t Look Back.”