Meanwhile, Kino Lorber Studio Classics has announced that Jonathan Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate (2004) will arrive on 4K Ultra HD on 3/19, along with Roger Michell’s Changing Lanes (2002) in 4K. And on 3/26, look for Ted Kotcheff’s North Dallas Forty (1979) and Joshua Logan’s Paint Your Wagon (1969) each on both 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray.
And Shout! Factory has begun announcing its April slate of titles, which so far is set to include Stephen Hopkins’ Lost in Space (1998) and Rhys Frake’s Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023) both on Blu-ray on 4/9 (for Scream Factory), Paul Schrader’s Affliction (1997) on Blu-ray on 4/16 (as a Shout Select title), John Flynn’s Rolling Thunder (1977) in 4K Ultra HD on 4/23 (also as a Shout Select title), and Yuzuru Tachikawa anime Blue Giant (2023) on Blu-ray on 4/30 (for GKids).
Also, a variety of our industry sources (as well as director Alex Proyas and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski in recent public comments) have confirmed that Paramount is working to bring The Crow (1994) to 4K Ultra HD later this year.
Director Joseph Kosinski has recently revealed (in a Watch-a-Long YouTube podcast with Happy Sad Confused) that he’s recently completed a new 4K Ultra HD remaster of Tron: Legacy (2010). That’s the good news. The bad news is that—as far as we know—Disney currently has no plans to release it on physical 4K disc. Most likely it’s going to end up on Disney+ instead. Anyway, Kosinski’s Tron: Legacy comments start about 29 minute in. And the occasion for the video is that it’s a essentially a live commentary for Top Gun: Maverick, so fans of that film should enjoy the hell out of it for that reason alone.
By the way, Disney has also been holding monthly screenings on their lot of 4K film remasters from the Fox catalog, all of which were completed prior to Disney’s acquisition of Fox (there are 20-30 titles in all). The most recent was Ronald Neame’s The Poseidon Adventure (1972). And once again, Disney has no plans to release any of these on physical 4K UHD. Most of these aren’t even available in 4K for streaming either, at least in the United States. (But some of them are available on Disney+/Starz internationally.) Hopefully, Disney will gain more confidence in catalog 4K physical media after strong sales of the Cameron 4K titles. We’ll see...
Finally today, Stephen has posted a great editorial piece on our Patreon on recent trends in fandom that tend to produce mostly negative reactions to almost everything shared on social media and online, from movie reviews to physical media release news and more. It’s worth a look, because it’s something that all of us who cover film, TV, pop culture, home theater, physical media, and fandom in general have been dealing with and thinking about a lot lately. I think you’ll find it interesting.
We’ll leave you with a look at the cover artwork for some of the titles mentioned above and more, with Amazon pre-order links if available...
Stay tuned...!
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