Displaying items by tag: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

We start today with another new disc review for your reading enjoyment: Tim has taken a look at Nico Mastorakis’ The Wind (1986) on Blu-ray from Arrow Video and he’s got some thoughts on it for you. Do give it a look.

Now then... we have a little bit of a surprise for you today on the 4K front. Retail sources are reporting that Walt Disney Studios is preparing to release Kenny Ortega’s Hocus Pocus (1993) and Chris Columbus’ Home Alone (1990) on Blu-ray in September, presumably in time for the holidays.

This is interesting because while the titles are popular and have certainly sold well on DVD and Blu-ray, they’re somewhat unlikely titles for release on 4K. Home Alone is also a Fox title. And both are live action catalog films, a category that Disney has yet to really exploit on the physical 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format. [Read on here...]

All right, it turns out that other than the usual new models of 4K and 8K display—and the Filmmaker Mode announcement that we already covered—there’s not really a whole lot of worthy 4K UHD news to report from CES 2020.

So we’re working new disc reviews for you, including a number of 4K Ultra HD titles that we expect to start posting tomorrow.

We do have one new review for you for today: Tim has checked out Scream Factory’s new Blu-ray release of Val Guest’s The Abominable Snowman (1957), a Hammer Films title some of you may have missed. Do give it a look.

Now them... we do have some good new title announcements, as well as some new cover artwork to share with you today. [Read on here...]

We’ve got a bit of interesting 4K Ultra HD news for you today...

First, on the all digital front, Lionsgate has just set Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker as Digital only 4K release on 2/4.

It’ll feature Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio.

Of course, we know that most of you are physical disc consumers, so we’ve got a street date update for you guys today as well—covering forthcoming Blu-ray and 4K new releases.

The following information comes from studio and retail sources, but none of these titles have actually been announced yet.

So just be aware that the dates listed below could change a little bit still, as often happens before the studio makes their street dates official. [Read on here...]

Okay, this is just a very quick late Friday update to let you all know that director Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel will officially arrive on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on 7/23, with the Digital release expected on 7/9.

And the great news is that the 4K Ultra HD package will include a Blu-ray 3D version of the film too. (It appears that the 4K package will be the only way to get the film in 3D in the States, unless there’s a retail exclusive SKU we don’t know about yet.)

This is official from the Fox Movies website, and we would expect the home video press release to go out at any time now.

You can see the 4K cover artwork at left, and we have artwork for all three versions below. [Read on here...]

All right, let’s get right down to it. I’ve been reluctant to talk about the prospects of James Cameron’s The Abyss and True Lies arriving on Blu-ray (and dare we hope 4K) in 2019 because we’ve had SO many solid reports that these films were finally coming only to see them evaporate. And when I’ve tried to find out why, Fox always pointed at Cameron and Cameron always pointed back at Fox. What I finally figured out is that Cameron has just been too distracted with other projects to approve new transfers of these films, first with diving to the bottom of the ocean and more recently with his Avatar prequels.

As longtime Bits readers will be well aware, both films were expected for their last major anniversaries in 2014. We know for a fact that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment had even prepared new Blu-ray releases (most recently rumored for release in 2017), but Cameron never got around to approving the new transfers, so the Blu-ray releases never happened. The transfers were quietly released to the pay cable movie channels only.

Well, now it’s five years later. 2019 officially marks the 30th anniversary of The Abyss and the 25th of True Lies. Naturally, that means Bits readers have been asking me for weeks about the prospects of finally seeing these films released on Blu-ray (and, again, dare we hope 4K). I’ve even spoken to studio sources about this recently. And again, what I learned was that the ball was still in James Cameron’s court. [Read on here...]

All right, we’re going to have a larger post with a big release news update later this afternoon, but I wanted to chime in quickly with this...

For months now, we’ve been saying that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment was planning to promote the 40th anniversary of director Ridley Scott’s original Alien (1979). This was based on our sources within the industry.

Well... now we have the first word from retailers.

UK disc retailer Zavvi has just listed a 2-disc Alien: 40th Anniversary Edition for release on 4K Ultra HD on 4/1/2019 (or 1, April as you guys would say across the pond).

There are no other details yet available. We expect that the US release date will be somewhat different, but certainly within a week or two. The official announcement is likely due very soon and we’ve already asked the studio about this.

In the meantime, you can see temp UK cover artwork above left. Keep in mind, it’s subject to change – this is just the temporary artwork the studio has given to retailers.

Thanks to an overseas friend and Bits reader for alerting me to this.

Back later with a much larger post and more news. Stay tuned...

(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

All right, we’ve got another very quick update for you today...

First, we expect to have a new History, Legacy & Showmanship column from our own Michael Coate tomorrow, so be sure to watch for that.

Also, we’ve learned from retail sources that Universal’s Mortal Engines is likely due to hit Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on 3/12. The studio’s Mary Queen of Scots is likely set for 3/5, while Green Book appears to be a 2/19 release. And it seems that Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet seems to be slated for 2/26 or thereabouts. And Paramount’s Overlord appears to be due on or about 2/12.

We’ve updated our 4K Ultra HD Release List here at The Bits accordingly. [Read on here...]

First things first today...

No sooner did we post word from retail sources yesterday that Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom is expected to street on Blu-ray, DVD, Blu-ray 3D, and 4K Ultra HD on 9/18 (pending Universal’s official announcement), we learned this...

20th Century Fox Home Entetainment is now expected to release John McTiernan’s original Predator (1987) on 4K Ultra HD on 8/7. And we know this because the title is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com for that date (SRP $39.99, but Amazon has it for $34.19). You can see the official cover artwork at left and also below the break.

We’re awaiting Fox’s official announcement, which we expect at any time now, but this should be a full new native 4K film scan and restoration from the original camera negative and it should finally rid the film of the godawful DNR scrubbing it’s been given on past Blu-ray editions.

The disc will also include a Blu-ray copy in the package, and we suspect that this will be mastered from the same 4K scan too (but we’ll have to wait for the press release to confirm that officially, along with other details). [Read on here...]

This just in: Retail and industry sources are now telling us that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is going to be releasing John McTiernan’s original Predator (1987) on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray later this year, likely in August, to support the September theatrical release of the new Shane Black sequel film The Predator. We’ve updated our 4K Ultra HD Release List accordingly.

We don’t have any additional information on this yet (this is NOT an officially announced title yet), but fans will know that this film has been plagued by terrible transfers on disc over the years. The original 2008 Blu-ray release was decent, though the 2010 Ultimate Hunter Edition Blu-ray (which included all the legacy special features) was a flat-out disaster of epic proportions, with so much of the film’s fine detail and grain texture removed through the excessive use of DNR (digital noise reduction) that it was unwatchable.

Fox certainly already knows this, but it’s worth saying regardless: The studio could score massive points with fans of the film if the 4K remastered package included a new and properly-remastered Blu-ray edition of the film as well… one with all those good special features too in one package. Fingers crossed.

Stay tuned…

- Bill Hunt

(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

First up today, we have no less than three new disc reviews for you, starting with Tim’s thoughts on Fangs of the Living Dead from Scream Factory as well as The Hospital and Harry and Walter Go to New York from Twilight Time.

We’ve also got a big one for you today: My own in-depth thoughts on Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray from Disney and Lucasfilm. The disc is a reference-quality experience and it includes some of the best special features we’ve seen on a new release Blu-ray in years. This one is definitely worth your time. Enjoy!

We’ve also updated our Release Dates & Artwork section here at The Bits with all the latest Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray cover artwork and Amazon.com pre-order links. As always, we appreciate it when shop Amazon through our links as it helps us a great deal in keeping the site going. So thank you! [Read on here...]