We’ve also heard from Sony that the previously reported 12/18 street date for Venom (which came from retail sources) is not correct. We’re hearing the actual date may be 1/8/19, but the studio would like you to know that officially the title is still TBA. Warner’s Smallfoot now appears to be a 12/11 release. And it looks like Julius Avery’s Overlord is coming to 4K as well, sometime early in 2019 from Paramount. We’ve updated our 4K Ultra HD Release List here at The Bits accordingly.
Also from Sony, look for White Boy Rick on Blu-ray and DVD on 12/25, with the Digital release expected on 12/11.
In other release news, HBO has set The Deuce: Season Two for Blu-ray and DVD release on 2/5/19.
Mill Creek Entertainment is releasing a Blu-ray double feature of The Karate Kid, Part III and The Next Karate Kid on 1/8.
Well Go USA will release The House That Never Dies: Reawakening on DVD and Digital on 12/4. The company is also releasing the Detective Dee: 3 Movie Collection on DVD only 11/13 exclusively at Walmart. It features the Chinese wuxia fantasy/actioners Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings, Detective Dee and The Mystery of the Phantom Flame, and Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon. And Well Go will release Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital on 12/11.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will release the all-new Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost on DVD and Digital on 2/5/19.
Eureka Entertainment in the UK is releasing Basil Dearden’s Khartoum (1966) in a Blu-ray/DVD Combo edition in the UK on 3 December. The film stars Charlton Heston and Sir Laurence Olivier.
And Lionsgate will release The Oath on DVD on 1/8, with the Digital release on 12/28. They also have American Renegades coming to Blu-ray and DVD on 1/22.
In other news today, if any of you are fans of classic cinema and director Orson Welles, I highly recommend you check out his final film that was recently finished and released on Netflix: The Other Side of the Wind. And I also highly recommend you check out the new documentary about the making of this film on Netflix: They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead. Both are absolutely fascinating insights into to the mind and genius/madness of Welles in his later years. They’re really not to be missed.
Also today, our old friend, director, and longtime special edition producer Robert Meyer Burnett has just posted the first episode of his new Robservations web series on YouTube. It’s meant to be a deep dive into various aspects of pop culture Geekdom. As anyone who knows Rob personally will tell you, he’s the perfect host for such a journey. The first episode is a visit with an old childhood friend in Seattle who’s now a member of the 501st Legion, building screen accurate replica Star Wars costumes and Landspeeders. Yes, Landspeeders. It’s pretty cool... 39 minutes of serious nerdvana. I highly recommend your pour yourself a cup of coffee and check it out here...
And finally today, we have a pair of deaths that must be acknowledged. The first is Canadian actor Douglas Rain, better known to many of you as the voice of the HAL 9000 computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. He was also one of the founding members of the Stratford Festival. Some of you may not know this, but he also voiced the computer and robot butlers in Woody Allen’s Sleeper (1973). You can read more about him here.
News of this next death came in just as I began working on today’s news post here at The Bits, and it’s a toughie: Stan Lee, the legendary chief writer and editor of Marvel Comics, and creator/co-creator of so many iconic superhero and comic book characters has died this morning at the age of 95. Many, many people around the Internet will be posting tributes and remembrances of Lee today, to which the best I can add is that in all my many years as the editor of The Bits, I can scarcely remember a convention I attended in which I didn’t see Lee, pass him in the hallways, attend one of his panels, or hear his gravely but enthusiastic voice. And every time, it made me smile. He was a force of nature and had a tremendous impact on the entire pop culture universe and all its many inhabitants. He will be missed. You can read more about him here at The New York Times.
That’s all for now, except to send out a nod of thanks in honor of all you veterans out there.
Excelsior.
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)