First, our friends at Arrow Video have teased another round of Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD catalog announcements, this time for May, on their social media today. And they’ve made it pretty clear that Clive Barker’s Nightbreed (1990) is going to be among them. Watch for the official reveal to drop on Friday (2/28) morning.
Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment has now officially set Barry Levinson’s Sleepers (1996) for 4K Ultra HD and 4K Steelbook release on 4/21. The film will include Dolby Vision HDR and 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio.
Speaking of Warner, those of you who’ve been reading The Bits for any length of time will know that we’ve been tracking their forthcoming release of The Wachowski’s Speed Racer (2008) for months now. And we first reported last week that the film was likely to street on 5/19. Well, our sources have been hinting recently that the disc will include both Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. And now, no less than Speed himself (actor Emile Hirsch) has reported on his social media that the disc will indeed have a new Atmos mix. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting really excited for this one.
Meanwhile, Kino Lorber Studio Classics has officially set J. Lee Thompson’s 10 to Midnight (1983) for release in 4K Ultra HD on 5/12, along with René Clément’s Rider on the Train (1970). Both films star Charles Bronson.
KLSC will also release Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity (2009) in 4K Ultra HD in the months ahead, licensed from Universal. Street date is TBA.
Capelight Pictures in Germany has revealed that they’re delaying their planned 4K Ultra HD release of Robert Wise’s West Side Story (1961)—which had been set for 3/26—in order to commission a new 8K scan of the original camera negative and more restoration work for the release. So the title has tentatively been rescheduled for release in August (8/5). We’ll definitely keep you up to date. Meanwhile, you can pre-order the title here.
Sony has set a new 4K Ultra HD Steelbook of Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code (2006) for release on 5/19 in honor of the film’s 20th anniversary.
Mondo Macabro will release Teruo Ishiii’s Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight (1973) in 4K Ultra HD on 4/14.
And a label called Black Bear is releasing Ric Roman Waugh’s Shelter (2026) on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD on 5/15 in the UK. The film stars Jason Statham.
Finally today, producer Arnold Leibovit emailed to let us know that he’s setting up another great event at The Freda Cinema in Santa Ana, California on 4/18, featuring a 75th anniversary screening of Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), with another pair of restored Puppetoon shorts, and also the pre-screening premiere of The Puppetoon Movie: A Legacy Revisited. Tickets are on sale now here. So be sure to check it out if you live in SoCal!
That’s all for now! Back with more soon.
Stay tuned…- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter/X, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)