So you can now read our thoughts on...
Phase One – Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Avengers
Phase Two – Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Ant-Man
Phase Three – Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp (review coming), Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home
And that is certainly timely, because we’ve just learned—via a retailer site posting, not an official announcement—that Marvel and Disney will be releasing The Infinity Saga Collector’s Edition as a Blu-ray/4K Combo deluxe box set on 11/15 as a Best Buy exclusive only. For a whopping $549.99, you get all 23 films (reviewed above) on both Blu-ray and 4K. That works out to about $25 per film (which is a very modest savings on the usual Amazon/Best Buy sale prices for each film in 4K individually). The set will be individually numbered and will come with an exclusive Matt Ferguson lithograph, a signed letter by Kevin Feige, and an exclusive bonus disc with never-before-seen deleted scenes and more. Here’s what it looks like (click the link to visit the Best Buy page)...
That bonus disc will not be available separately and the extras will not be available digitally either. And again, it’s ONLY available at Best Buy. So don’t even expect an official announcement for the release. It’s possible that a similar box set could be available internationally, but in the US it’s retail exclusive. As for those who may be frustrated at having purchased the singles (and not be able to get the bonus disc outside of the set), well... direct your irritation at Disney. The larger question is what this might mean (if anything) for an eventual Star Wars Saga BD/4K box set at this time next year. Could that be a retail exclusive too?
While we’re talking Disney and 4K today, we’ve also learned that the studio is releasing another batch of catalog animated titles on the format on 11/5, including Moana, Big Hero 6, Tangled, Zootopia, and The Princess and the Frog. Those are official. And if we had to guess, it seems likely that the final Pixar titles will be December or January releases in 4K (including A Bug’s Life, Up, WALL-E, Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University). That essentially clears the decks for next year to be all about Star Wars in 4K.
Meanwhile today, Lionsgate has also set Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club and Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier for 4K release on 12/10. Click on the title links for the relevant Amazon pre-order pages. We’ve updated our 4K Ultra HD Release List here at The Bits accordingly.
A couple of other title notes... Warner’s The Joker is now available for pre-order in Blu-ray and 4K on Amazon (street date TBA). So too is Sony’s The Angry Birds Movie 2 (again, street date TBA).
Here’s a look at that Disney cover artwork (with Amazon links)...
And that’s all for today. This happens to be my birthday, so I’m going to take the afternoon off, have a nice meal, and reflect on having achieved the milestone of 52 orbits of the sun.
Have a great day and stay tuned!
(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)