With the 4th of July holiday last week, there wasn’t a lot of activity on the Blu-ray announcement front. There was an important bit of news that slipped under the radar and a few new releases and repackagings, but nothing you really need to clear any Shelf Space for.
After a limited theatrical release, the Paul Walker vehicle, er, Vehicle 19 is coming to Blu-ray and DVD this month. Now I’m all for capitalizing on Walker’s Fast and the Furious cred to make generic knockoff automotive action movies, but I watched a screener of Vehicle 19 and I regret to inform you that it is neither fast nor furious.
Walker plays a parolee who gets in the wrong rental car. Already I love the premise. Now he’s inadvertently intercepted the bad guys’ package and has to decide whether to deliver it, abandon it or do the right thing. It’s a wonderful, pure exploitation premise, with a few cool stunts too but they’re filmed so close you can’t even really see the cars flip over.
Maybe Walker’s van speeds up a few times, and he gets angry in other scenes, but that’s not enough. How hard is this to explain? You have to be both fast and furious at the same time!
In big new release news, The Great Gatsby comes to Blu-ray in 3D and 2D at the end of August. The 3D didn’t have very much depth to me in theaters, and certainly no sticky outty stuff, but one good thing about 3D movies is the 2D Blu-ray always looks great. So there’ll be that.
Seven bonus featurettes are included, including one specifically featuring Tobey Maguire in “Within and Without.” There are also deleted scenes, so any Fitzgerald fans cringing at the screen adaptation may hold out hope that some of their favorite scenes were still filmed, though they didn’t make the final cut.
Disney Acquires Paramount Marvel Titles – August 31
Deadline is reporting that Disney has acquired the home video rights to the Marvel titles released under Paramount. That means Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. Paramount’s rights continue until August 31, the end of this summer.
The logical conclusion to assume is that Disney is probably planning a huge Marvel box set, of at least Marvel Phase One (leading up to The Avengers) and perhaps Phase Two. They probably won’t wait until 2015 to release these newly acquired titles, but since all true fans own the previous releases already, they’d better come up with some unbelievable, and we mean really unbelievable extras to make it worth purchasing a new set.
Blu-ray.com scored the news of Scream Factory’s fall release of George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead. The least praised of Romero’s original trilogy, it looks like Scream Factory is doing right by Day with a new high definition transfer, although my Anchor Bay version looks pretty darn good so we’ll see how much it’s improved.
Two new documentaries look at the legacy of the film and the mines where the missile silo set was constructed. They’ve also kept a number of the previous extras, like both audio commentaries (one by Roger Avary!), behind-the-scenes footage, photo gallery and trailers. Gone are the audio interview with Richard Liberty and Gateway Commerce Center Promo.
The Dark Knight Trilogy – September 24
Finally, we can watch all three Christopher Nolan Batman movies in succession. We weren’t allowed to do that before. If you were marathoning your individual Blu-rays of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, you’re in trouble. That’s like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters or something.
I’ve been ragging on Warner Home Video’s anniversary double dip re-releases a lot this year, because there have been a striking number of movies already available on Blu-ray with minimal new features. I was going to give The Dark Knight Trilogy a break because it is Batman, we all knew they were going to come out with a complete set, and it did look like some of the new features would be worthwhile.
Then I saw that it retails for $99.97. That’s a hundred bucks for movies that sold separately for a combined $75! Now, I’m sure you’ll be able to find the Trilogy for $70-80 on the likes of Amazon.com but still, it shouldn’t cost more to rebuy movies you already own in the same format. And really, is there any fan who doesn’t already own all three films? Were any of you holding out until they came out with the whole set? Aside from being first world problems, I honestly don’t understand the marketing strategy here. Who have they not sold the Batman movies to yet, and how is this intended to be a more salable package than the previous releases?
The new feature that interests me is “Christopher Nolan & Richard Donner: A Conversation.” Those are two artists I would really like to hear talk. Both are pretty no holds barred about their opinions, regarding superheroes or anything else. The retrospective doc on the trilogy feels like a repackaging but we’ll see if it offers any new insights or perspective. They’re touting the IMAX scenes from Dark Knight and Rises but those Blu-rays already opened up to feature the full IMAX frame for those scenes. The Hot Wheels toys, Mondo art cards and hardcover book of photos are fun but that seems like it’s going to take up more shelf space, and we’re all about making room for new stuff on our shelves.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
