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Wednesday, 22 May 2019 12:58

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is coming to Blu-ray as a Disney Movie Club exclusive

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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

It’s been long awaited by film fans, especially after its extensive 4K restoration (from the original negative and 35mm 4-track audio masters) in 2012, which premiered at the TCM Classic Film Festival that year.

(You can read about the audio portion of that effort here at the Disney Digital Studio Services website.)

But Richard Fleischer’s beloved 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) has never appeared on Blu-ray. The film stars Kirk Douglas, James Mason, and Peter Lorre, and is beloved by generations of movie buffs.

The reason for its absence on Blu-ray is that Disney has, for many years, been trying to remake the film.

Bryan Singer was involved at one point, then James Mangold, and David Fincher, along with a host of actors including Brad Pitt and more recently Johnny Depp. [Read on here...]

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The problem is that the box office failures of John Carter, then Tron: Legacy, and Tomorrowland made the studio cautious about big budget live action science fiction and fantasy. Then Disney purchased the Star Wars franchise, and that’s where their attention went.

There have been rumors in recent months that a 20,000 Leagues remake is back on the studio’s to-do list, but it appears that they’ve finally decided to cave into demand and release the film on Blu-ray.

The catch is... it will be a Disney Movie Club exclusive title, set to premiere sometime in June or July alongside Jules Verne’s In Search of the Castaways (1962). So if you want it, that’s how you’ll finally be able to get it. Probably without much in the way of extras, which is a shame. Here’s the relevant promotional image (and thanks to the many Bits readers who sent it to us)...

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Disney Movie Club

And it begs the question... could The Black Hole (1979) be the next long-awaited Disney live action film (also for years the subject of Disney remake efforts) to arrive on Blu-ray as a Club exclusive?

Stay tuned...

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