Tons of new 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray announcements, including Red Dawn, Child’s Play, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape & The Bionic Woman

Wednesday, 01 June 2022 19:51

Tons of new 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray announcements, including Red Dawn, Child’s Play, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape & The Bionic Woman

by Bill Hunt

Now it’s time to run down some of the major announcement news that’s broken over the past few days, and we have some real gems to report for you. Let’s start with 4K Ultra HD catalog news...

First up, our friends at Shout! and Scream Factory have just unveiled a great batch of new 4K Ultra HD titles for August release, including John Milius’ Red Dawn (1984) as a Shout Select 4K UHD release (a Collector’s Edition box with exclusive pins and a poster will also be available directly from the Shout! website) and new 4K UHD Collector’s Editions of Child’s Play, Child’s Play 2, and Child’s Play 3 on 8/16, followed by Mamoru Hosoda’s BELLE on 4K Ultra HD on 8/30. You can see the cover artwork for these at left and below the break. Note that the release of Scream’s 4Ks of Cat People and The Funhouse have also been pushed back to 8/2 and 8/9 respectively (from 7/19 and 7/26).

Kino Lorber Studio Classics has now teased new 4K UHD releases of George P. Cosmatos’ Leviathan (1989) and Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder (2008). Both are listed as “coming soon.” That last one is particularly interesting, as it’s part of a new content distribution deal the company has signed with Paramount Home Entertainment. The deal apparently includes some 65 titles in all on Blu-ray (8 of which are being released on disc for the first time), including 16 on 4K Ultra HD. Among these are old Republic titles, though reportedly none released previously by Olive Films. Given KLSC’s recent focus on Sergio Leone westerns, we think it’s a good bet that Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) will be among the 4K titles. [Read on here...]

While we’re talking Paramount, some of you will be aware that we reported on Sunday that the studio is expected to release the Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Director’s Edition on 4K Ultra HD in September (per the studio’s own announcement earlier this year) as well as Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country (per European retail sources). The European street dates are currently listed on a few retail sites as 9/12 (V), 9/19 (IV), and 9/26 (TMPDE). Paramount here in the States could choose to release these titles individually too, or they may bundle them in a second 4K UHD box set—we’ll have to wait until their official announcement to know for sure. (Features and extras are obviously also TBA.) Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to expect these films to reach the format in September at long last. As for why there’s no mention yet of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films coming to 4K, it may be that Paramount is saving those for 2023 to coincide with the streaming and Blu-ray release of Star Trek: Picard – Season Three. Keep in mind that Season Three is set to bring back almost the entire Next Generation cast for one final adventure—and it’s likely to be their last—so it would make sense for the studio to want to celebrate TNG with both Blu-ray and 4K UHD SKUs next year.

Also on the topic of Paramount, we have word from retail sources that Top Gun: Maverick (BD, DVD, 4K, and 4K Steelbook) and the Top Gun 2-Movie Collection (BD and 4K) will street on 8/23.

Speaking of Top Gun, Random Space Media is currently running a sale for their Limited Edition “VHS case” Blu-ray double feature of Top Gun and Days of Thunder. It’s just $9.98 (click here for that).

And some of you may be interested to know that the Paramount catalog titles The Stepford Wives (2004), Stardust (2007), The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008), and A Thousand Words (2012) have all recently been upgraded to 4K UHD on iTunes. It’s therefore possible that one or more could find their way to 4K disc in the months ahead.

One last 4K Ultra HD note... Warner’s Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is now available for pre-order on Amazon in Blu-ray and 4K, street date 6/28. You can see the cover artwork below.

Now let’s talk regular Blu-ray: Shout! Factory has also announced a nice slate of BD titles for release in August, including Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water – The Complete Series (for GKids) and Last Days in the Desert: Shout Select on 8/2, followed by Learning to Drive: Shout Select on 8/9, a Ferngully: The Last Rainforest – 30th Anniversary Edition and A Walk in the Woods: Shout Select on 8/23, and... surprise... The Bionic Woman: The Complete Series on 8/30! The Bionic Woman will include all 58 episodes, along with the Six Million Dollar Man crossover episodes and all three reunion films. Do keep in mind that Shout! will be releasing The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Series on Blu-ray on 7/12, as we’ve reported previously. You can see the cover art for both below.

Meanwhile, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has set Outlander: Season Six for Blu-ray and DVD release on 9/6.

Paramount will release Coneheads, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and What Women Want on Blu-ray on 8/16. (If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time What’s Eating Gilbert Grape has been released on Blu-ray here in the States.) The studio also has South Park: The Complete Twenty-Fourth Season coming on Blu-ray that same day (for Comedy Central). And they have a Paramount Presents Blu-ray of Back to the Beach coming on 8/9.

Mill Creek’s long-awaited Blu-ray release of SeaQuest DSV: The Complete Series is officially set to street on 7/19. You can see the cover artwork below.

And this counts as a new release (including 4K), but Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has officially set Robert Eggers’ The Northman for release on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on 6/7, with the Digital release set for 6/6. Extras will include deleted and extended scenes, audio commentary with Eggers, and 6 featurettes (An Ageless Epic, The Faces of Vikings, Amleth’s Journey to Manhood, Shooting the Raid, Knattleikr Game, and A Norse Landscape). The 4K will include Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio.

We’ll leave you with a look at the cover art for a number of the titles mentioned above. Click on each cover to pre-order the title in question on Amazon.com...

Stay tuned...!

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Tons of new 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray announcements, including Red Dawn, Child’s Play, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape & The Bionic Woman

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