This 7-disc Limited Edition Hardbox set brings together all 17 digitally restored episodes, brand NEW and archival Special Features, the in-depth documentaries ‘Don’t Knock Yourself Out’, and ‘In My Mind’, which examines the story of Patrick McGoohan’s reluctance to speak about the series, Plus a bonus disc with five episodes of Patrick McGoohan’s previous series Danger Man – two of them new to Blu-ray. Also included is a 120-page collectible booklet.

Christopher Nolan is reported to be involved with a remake of The Prisoner as one of his next projects.

Only 1500 copies are being produced, and can be ordered on Imprint’s online store.

The Prisoner Blu-ray will be released on June 5, 2024

Tech specs

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/9226340

David Lynch’s landmark 1986 neo-noir horror film, which marked his first collaboration with Laura Dern alongside her future “Twin Peaks: The Return” co-star Kyle McLachlan, will be re-released by Criterion with a new 4K transfer. It joins Lynch’s “Eraserhead,” “Mulholland Drive,” “Lost Highway,” “Inland Empire,” “The Elephant Man,” and “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” in the Criterion 4K library.

Also getting the 4K treatment is Terry Gilliam’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” which sees Johnny Depp playing Hunter S. Thompson stand-in Raoul Duke in a psychedelic adaptation of the landmark countercultural novel.

New additions to the collection include Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s “Bound,” Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “Querelle,” Emilio Fernández’s “Victims of Sin,” and Barry Jenkins’ “The Underground Railroad.”

Tech specs

To be honest, I'd rather see the original cut of The Crow: City of Angels, but that's another story.

The Crow: Salvation is getting a Blu-ray release from Scream Factory

Scream Factory is giving the 2000 Crow sequel The Crow: Salvation a (very) limited edition Blu-ray release

By Cody Hamman

March 14th 2024, 10:57am

Based on the comic book series created by James O'Barr, the first version of The Crow was released in 1994 and told the tragic story of goth rocker Eric Draven and the love of his life, Shelly Webster. Later this year (on June 7th, to be exact), we'll be getting a remake of The Crow, with the story of Eric and Shelly being told all over again. It seems kind of strange to do a remake and revisit characters in a franchise that lends itself to the anthology format, where each film can be focused on a different vengeful, undead person... but it does make business sense, because The Crow remake is getting more attention than the three Crow sequels ever got. But those Crow sequels do have their fans, and Scream Factory is about to celebrate one of them -- The Crow: Salvation from 2000 -- with a limited edition Blu-ray release on March 26th.

Directed by Bharat Nalluri from a screenplay written by Chip Johannessen, The Crow: Salvation has the following synopsis: Alex Corvis is falsely convicted of brutally stabbing his girlfriend Lauren to death. He maintains his innocence and insists that Lauren was killed by a man with distinctive scars on his body but the police cannot find any trace of him. After three years on death row, Alex is electrocuted in a messy execution and shortly after, his guardian crow appears and resurrects him. With the help of Lauren's sister Erin, the Crow begins his hunt for the killer.

The film stars Eric Mabius, Kirsten Dunst, William Atherton, Grant Shaud, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, David H. Stevens, Dale Midkiff, Bill Mondy, Walton Goggins, Tim DeKay, Don Shanks, Joey Miyashima, Kylee Cochran, Bruce McCarty, Kelly Haren, Noname Jane, and Fred Ward.

The Scream Factory Blu-ray release of The Crow: Salvation will have the following bonus features:

Audio Commentary With Director Bharat Nalluri, Actor Eric Mabius, Producer Jeff Most, Composer Marco Beltrami, And Production Designer Maia Javan
Behind-The-Scenes Featurette
Behind-The-Makeup Featurette
Production Design Featurette
"Who's That Bird?"
Image Gallery
Trailer
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround and 2.0 Stereo
Optional English subtitles for the main feature

Wow!

When you buy one of the best TVs, most of which now have 4K resolution, you want to feed it the best quality possible. I recently tested 4K Blu-ray vs streaming, and although I found the picture with both to be closer than expected, it became clear during my comparison that 4K Blu-ray was superior - especially when it came to audio quality.

If you’re thinking of buying one of the best 4K Blu-ray players, you’ll find that, in terms of price and features, the market can be as diverse as TVs themselves. You can pay as little as $199 / £159 / AU$399 for a basic player, up to over $999 / £999/ AU$1,699 for a premium model.

While there are competitors within the 4K Blu-ray player market, the main manufacturer is Panasonic, which makes consistently high-quality, well-built models that rate highly regardless of whether they are budget, mid-range or premium. Other manufacturers include Sony, Raevon and Magnetar (with the latter two at the premium end of the market).

It should be no problem to opt for a budget model because a 4K Blu-ray player just plays discs, right? Well, a budget player will give you 4K Blu-ray disc playback, but there are a lot of other factors to consider including HDR support, upscaling, audio quality, connectivity and even built-in smart features. The best 4K Blu-ray players do more than just play discs nowadays.

Whilst there are many great 4K Blu-ray players, I’ll primarily discuss three models here: the Panasonic DP-UB154 (and DP-UB150) as the budget entry, the Panasonic DP-UB820 for the mid-range, and the Panasonic DP-UB9000 as the premium option (with a few more at the premium end).

...

Unsurprisingly, spending more on a player will get you a more premium 4K Blu-ray experience. The UB9000 has all the bells and whistles (barring SACD) that you need and delivers audio and video at the highest quality level. But then again, none of these 4K Blu-ray players will let you down, and they offer enough positives at their respective prices.

If you can stretch your budget for the UB820 ($425 / £349 / AU$769), you'll find it absolutely worth it. Panasonic’s mid-range player has many of the premium UB9000's features at just over a third of that player’s price. From my personal experience, the UB820 is built to last and delivers excellent picture quality. There are good reasons why the Panasonic UB820 sits at the top of our list of the best 4K Blu-ray players.

So, opening this up to the floor, what's your experience and advice?

Top 20 Selling Blu-ray Discs

1. Wonka
2. Migration
3. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
4. Dune: Part One
5. The Marvels
6. Oppenheimer
7. Trolls Band Together
8. American Psycho
9. Dream Scenario
10. Priscilla
11. Twister
12. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
13. Five Nights at Freddy's
14. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — Season 1
15. The Expendables 4
16. All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
17. Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part One
18. Silent Night
19. Barbie
20. John Wick: Chapter 4

Source: NPD VideoScan First Alert (based on unit sales from reporting retailers)

Top 20 Selling 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Discs

1. Wonka
2. Dune: Part One
3. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
4. American Psycho
5. Oppenheimer
6. Migration
7. The Marvels
8. All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
9. Army of Darkness
10. Paprika
11. Contagion
12. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
13. The Roaring Twenties
14. Dredd
15. Planet Earth III
16. Godzilla vs. Kong
17. Train to Busan
18. Fear and Desire
19. Creepshow
20. Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Vol. 4

Source: NPD VideoScan First Alert (based on unit sales from reporting retailers)

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/research/top-20-selling-blu-ray-and-4k-discs-for-week-ended-3-2-24/

In the latest Digital Media Entertainment Report, DEG has introduced the new metric Physical Product, a combination of two revenue streams it previously reported separately — DVD sales and rentals. Rentals lost more than 50% of the previous year’s total revenues in 2023 because of, according to DEG, Netflix’s decision to end its DVD rental service at the end of October.

Starting in the 2024 report, Physical Product will account for only DVD sales, with DVD rentals being completely phased out. This call was made just a few years after DEG demoted rentals from a dedicated category, with separate metrics for brick-and-mortar stores, kiosks and subscriptions, to just a single sum.

Physical Rentals’ impending departure raises questions about what’s going to happen to the lion’s share of the Physical Product figure in 2024 — the sales figure that didn’t erode too badly coming out of 2022 but is likely to shrivel this year as Best Buy stops stocking DVDs in stores. What’s worse, there are signs of more such retail departures.

DEG did not publish the exact split of Physical Product between sales and rentals, but rough estimates can be calculated based on the existing information. DVD rentals in 2022 were $502.35 million, so assuming the “more than 50%” decline in rentals from 2022 means roughly 55% of that number, that puts physical rentals revenue for 2023 around $225 million.

If you subtract that number from Physical Product (roughly $1.6 billion), that leaves 2023 physical DVD sales at around $1.36 billion — a 16% decline from 2022.

VIP+ projects 2024 will be the first year the DVD will be a sub-billion-dollar business. Truth be told, it could have very well crossed that benchmark this year had it not been for the successful Blu-ray release of “Oppenheimer” in the fourth quarter.

Archive (original, Variety VIP+)

OPINION: Despite all the doom and gloom about physical media in recent months, it continues to walk – perhaps a little unsteady, but it’s still one foot in front of the other.

...

4K Blu-ray has been in existence for about eight years, and after tentative launches of new films – it took Disney more than a year to launch its first 4K Blu-ray title in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 – there’s been an increasing amount of new films and catalogue (older titles) hitting the market.

jNot all the titles I’d like to be on 4K Blu-ray are making it to the format. It would have been nice to see a 4K physical version of Greta Lee’s Past Lives, but I can see the logic of a small film not being the biggest seller in the market. That Poor Things and The Iron Claw are new releases that aren’t getting a 4K release (at least for the time being) is disappointing, considering I think those two films would benefit from the boost in resolution and colour performance.

But what I find more frustrating is that, like vinyl, there is an increasingly big push towards 4K Blu-ray becoming a collectors market. As I write this Dune: Part Two has hit the cinemas, the home cinema releases have been announced and the film is getting a limited edition steelbook release on HMV, and the email I received on March 1st already had the words “limited copies available”

In the ‘olden’ days, you’d have expected this type of release a couple years after the film had been available, as a way of making people double dip. Instead, steelbooks are being used to push the price up while – aside from the visual design – there’s nothing particularly special about steelbooks themselves. And even more annoyingly, studios are now packaging the Blu-ray along with the 4K Blu-ray, but only with the steelbooks, so if you want a HD copy for your library then you’ll have to pay more.

More studios are employing this tactic, so what was once a 4K Blu-ray + Blu-ray combo that would (in the UK) set you back £24.99, the price has now been set to £34.99 for the steelbook, and all you’re getting is fancier looking packaging. I don’t even feel that current-day steelbooks look or feel as nice as steelbooks did in the DVD days either. I was walking through Fopp in London with a friend and they genuinely exclaimed when they saw a title going for £35.

We’re also still paying the same price for the standard release, but getting less in return. There’s very little –if any – effort with the special features which have dwindled to a few EPK vignettes. Studios such as Paramount (which seemed to start this trend), Warner Brothers, and Universal are all going down the road of single disc standard releases.

Top 20 Selling Blu-ray Discs

1. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
2. The Marvels
3. Oppenheimer
4. Trolls Band Together
5. The Conan Chronicles: Conan the Barbarian/Conan the Destroyer
6. Darkman
7. Priscilla
8. Paprika
9. Dune: Part One
10. Five Nights at Freddy's
11. The Expendables 4
12. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
13. Barbie
14. Silent Night
15. Beverly Hills Cop 3-Movie Collection
16. Thanksgiving
17. The Heroic Trio/Executioners
18. John Wick: Chapter 4
19. Leviathan
20. Avatar: The Way of Water

Source: NPD VideoScan First Alert (based on unit sales from reporting retailers)

Top 20 Selling 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Discs

1. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
2. The Conan Chronicles: Conan the Barbarian/Conan the Destroyer
3. The Marvels
4. Darkman
5. Oppenheimer
6. Paprika
7. Beverly Hills Cop 3-Movie Collection
8. Dune: Part One
9. Leviathan
10. Beverly Hills Cop 3
11. The Heroic Trio/Executioners
12. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
13. Planet Earth III
14. The Transformers: The Movie
15. The Expendables 4
16. The Last Castle
17. Avatar: The Way of Water
18. Starship Troopers
19. John Wick: Chapter 4
20. Titanic

Source: NPD VideoScan First Alert (based on unit sales from reporting retailers)

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/research/top-20-selling-blu-ray-and-4k-discs-for-week-ended-2-24-24/

Feel the Sting of Jason Statham Pollinating 4K UHD and Blu-ray with 'The Beekeeper' on April 23

Tom Landy

3--4 minutes

David Ayer's The Beekeeper starring action icon Jason Statham from Discovery Home Entertainment and Amazon MGM Studios will be buzzing to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and Blu-ray on April 23.

In The Beekeeper, one man's brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as "Beekeepers."

***The Beekeeper - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray ***

***The Beekeeper - Blu-ray ***

There doesn't appear to be any supplements, but both releases are listed to have Dolby Atmos soundtracks.

Pre-orders for The Beekeeper are up and included below is the press announcement:

"Wildly entertaining"

Tribune News Service / Katie Walsh

THE BEEKEEPER

ARRIVES ON 4K UHD, BLU-RAY AND DVD ON APRIL 23

**Burbank, CA, March 6 **-- The first action-thriller of 2024, The Beekeeper, from Amazon MGM Studios, will be available for purchase on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on April 23.

Directed by David Ayer ("Fury", "End of Watch") from a screenplay by Kurt Wimmer ("Salt", "Expend4bles"), the film is produced by Bill Block, Jason Statham, David Ayer, Chris Long, Kurt Wimmer.

The Beekeeper stars Jason Statham ("The Meg," "Furious 7", "The Fate of the Furious," The "Transporter" films), Emmy Raver-Lampman (TV's "The Umbrella Academy"), Josh Hutcherson ("The Hunger Games" films), Bobby Naderi, Minnie Driver ("Good Will Hunting"), Phylicia Rashad ("Creed") and Jeremy Irons (TV's "Watchmen").

The Beekeeper will be available on April 23 on 4K UHD for $27.99 (ERP), Blu-ray for $22.99 (ERP) and DVD for $17.99 (ERP).

ABOUT THE FILM:

In The Beekeeper, one man's brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as "Beekeepers."

Directed by: David Ayer

**Written by: **Kurt Wimmer

Produced by: Bill Block, Jason Statham, David Ayer, Chris Long p.g.a., Kurt Wimmer

Cast: Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Minnie Driver with Phylicia Rashad and Jeremy Irons

Amazon MGM Studios presents, a Miramax presentation, a Miramax, Cedar Park, Punch Palace Productions production. A film by David Ayer.

BASICS

PRODUCT                                                                            ERP

4K UHD                                                                                 $27.99

Blu-ray                                                                                   $22.99

DVD                                                                                       $17.99

Languages: English ATMOS, Eng-ADS-US

Subtitles: English SDH, LSP

Running Time: 105 minutes

Rating: Rated R for strong violence throughout, pervasive language, some sexual references and drug use.

Hi.

As you may be aware, the UK isn't getting a 4K release of The Abyss. I've been looking into importing and not getting very far. I don't know if it is because it hasn't actually been released yet.

Amazon.de removes if from my basket once I login.

Amazon.com keeps bringing up the streaming version on Prime.

Amazon.ca won't ship to the UK.

Amazon.fr don't seem to have it.

Finally, Rarewaves don't list it either.

I'm guessing I should try again when these places actually have physical stock, which for Europe is around the last week of April.

Here are two projects I've come across by accident that I thought were fascinating.

The first is the Domesday Duplicator. This rather expensive open source project rips the raw laserdisc data, ensuring the best possible way to archive the material. One small drawback, one side of laserdisc data will give you a 160GB file!

The system can also be used to get the raw data from VHS tapes as well. I was quite surprised, as long as the tape was properly made in the first place, how good VHS looks in its purest form. Obviously, depending on your connection to the TV, the quality would be degraded somewhat.

Physical media is the best. Maybe it’s the fact that the internet has taken over our lives and is now swiftly being enshittified. Maybe it’s the nostalgia factor. Maybe it’s the fact that streaming offers reduced quality and no actual ownership. Maybe it’s the fun and the community that comes with collecting. Or, maybe it’s just nice to have a beautifully packaged product sitting on your shelf. Whatever it is, one thing’s for sure: Whether you’re into Blu-rays, vinyl records, VHS tapes, or a cartridge of your favorite ‘90s video game, physical media is just plain fun.

The physical media market is at an interesting juncture right now. For years, intense but concentrated interest has consistently driven sales for a slew of boutique media labels that specialize in resurrecting old music and movies. At the same time, mass consumption of physical media has plummeted in recent decades and the opportunity to buy at big box stores is swiftly declining. Yet while the convenience of digital delivery has been enough for most consumers to ditch their physical players, a resurgent interest in physical products also appears to be in the works. So, is physical media doing well or not? It’s hard to say. One thing is certain: For the people who do appreciate a hard copy, there can be intense loyalty to a brand or a medium—enough to convince them to shell out exorbitant sums of cash. And remember if you own it on digital, you don’t really own it.

In that spirit, here are some of the coolest physical media releases we’ve seen lately, some of which are recent while others are coming soon.

The home video releases mentioned are:

• Slaughter in San Francisco from Eureka Entertainment
• Trainspotting on 4K from Criterion
• Saul Bass’s Phase IV from Vinegar Syndrome
• New VHS from Terror Vision Records
• Arrow Video is Releasing Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) on 4K
• Body Double Soundtrack on Vinyl by Waxwork Records
• Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room is Coming to 4K
• Stanley Kubrick’s Fear and Desire Is Out on 4K from Kino Lorber
• Necropolis: A Troma Film Soundtrack Compilation from Mystic Vault Records

According to Circana, the January 2024 top 10 by units sold were:

1. Trolls Band Together (Universal)
2. Oppenheimer (Universal)
3. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Disney)
4. Five Nights at Freddy’s (Universal)
5. The Expendables 4 (Lionsgate)
6. Barbie (Warner)
7. The Equalizer 3 (Sony Pictures)
8. The Holdovers (Universal)
9. Thanksgiving (Sony Pictures)
10. Transformers (Paramount)

Hello, I am looking at a CED player and 50 ish discs for $50 on Marketplace, I an interested in the format and have a small laserdisc collection, I know CEDs are lower resolution and most discs only have mono audio but I like oddball stuff like that. The seller did not mention if anything works but replacement belts seem fairly inexpensive though a replacement sytlus is pretty spendy if needed. Any advice you could give would be appreciated. Thanks.

Looking at releases from the end of February and March, there are several titles worth checking out — a couple of current titles arriving on disc after their theatrical runs, some upgraded or featuring expanded supplemental material, and still others never before released in a physical format.

They are:

• Fear and Desire directed by Stanley Kubrick from Kino Lorber
• Wonka directed by Paul King from Warner Home Video
• Dream Scenario directed by Kristoffer Borgli from Lionsgate
• The Abyss / Aliens / True Lies directed by James Cameron from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
• Ferrari directed by Michael Mann from Neon/ Decal Releasing
• To Die For directed by Gus Van Sant from Criterion
• Primal Fear directed by Gregory Hoblit from Paramount
• Phase IV directed by from Saul Bass from Vinegar Syndrome
• The Warriors directed by Walter Hill from Arrow
• Simon Killer directed by Antonio Campos from IFC Films

A decade-plus into the streaming revolution, you’d be forgiven for thinking physical media has had its day. Late last year, Best Buy announced it would no longer be selling DVDs and Blu-ray, just months after Netflix got out of the disc rental market that kick-started its business. According to a 2021 report from the Motion Picture Association, global physical media sales more than halved between 2017 and 2021, falling from $14.9 billion in 2017 to $6.5 billion in 2021.

But more recently, 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray has been making headlines for a very different set of reasons. The 4K Blu-ray release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer promptly sold out at major retailers just weeks after its director stood onstage to proudly talk about the amount of care and attention that the team was putting into it. Aside from new releases, there’s also been a steady flow of older titles coming to the format. James Cameron is currently in the midst of rereleasing films including Titanic, Aliens, and The Abyss on 4K discs, and last year, Disney reissued Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

It’s probably too early to claim that 4K Blu-ray is leading a vinyl revival-style resurgence of physical media. But these headlines piqued my interest as someone who fondly remembers building a respectable DVD collection as a teenager. “It’s such a good time to get into it right now,” Jeff Rauseo, a YouTuber (who formerly published under the channel name “Films At Home”) who specializes in reviewing physical media releases, tells me. “It’s getting a lot of traction.”

...

Nolan suggests there are at least two different benefits to a 4K Blu-ray disc: AV quality and ownership. “I’m known for my love of theatrical and put a lot of effort into that, but the truth is, the way the film goes out at home is equally important to me,” the director said at a screening last year. “In the case of Oppenheimer, we’ve put a lot of care and attention into the Blu-ray version but also in particular the 4K UHD version and trying to translate the photography and sound that we formatted for the IMAX format, the 70mm releases, and putting that into the digital realm for a version that you can buy and own at home and put on a shelf so no evil streaming service can come steal it from you.”

...

What’s particularly nice about owning a 4K Blu-ray is the sense that it has a good chance of being the final physical release a film might get. Cas Harlow, AVForums’ lead 4K Blu-ray reviewer, doesn’t think he’s going to have to replace all his 4K Blu-rays with 8K discs anytime soon like he had to do with VHS, DVDs, and Blu-rays in the past. “If they do 8K you’re edging past what you can justify,” he says. “We’re talking about [4K Blu-ray] as being probably the end physical format, the final physical format.”

...

Aside from the objective benefits, the collectors I spoke to talked about having an almost emotional attachment to their discs. “There’s just something about human nature and collecting and just having a representation of who you are,” says Rauseo, who estimates he has around 2,500 movies in his collection, including roughly 600 4K Blu-rays.

That’s where smaller boutique Blu-ray labels have been able to carve out a niche for themselves with deluxe packages that can often include additional collectibles like books and art cards in the box. Harlow points toward Second Sight Films’ recent rerelease of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as a key example of this trend. “What you’re getting there is a classic film that perhaps no one expected to hit 4K, let alone look great in 4K, that’s been given a loving and not controversial restoration and put in a lavish box set,” he says. According to market research firm Circana, the market for collector’s editions like these rose 85 percent to reach $80 million in the 12 months ending March 2023, and boutique label Arrow Films recently told Variety that its US sales increased 72 percent between 2020 and 2021.

Top 20 Selling Blu-ray Discs

1. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
2. The Marvels
3. Trolls Band Together
4. Oppenheimer
5. Priscilla
6. The Conan Chronicles: Conan the Barbarian/Conan the Destroyer
7. Planet Earth III
8. Footloose
9. Thanksgiving
10. Barbie
11. Five Nights at Freddy'a
12. The Expendables 4
13. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
14. Hypnotic
15. Silent Night
16. Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part One
17. Dune: Part One
18. John Wick: Chapter 4
19. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
20. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Source: NPD VideoScan First Alert (based on unit sales from reporting retailers)

Top 20 Selling 4K Ultta HD Blu-ray Discs

1. The Marvels
2. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
3. The Conan Chronicles: Conan the Barbarian/Conan the Destroyer
4. Planet Earth III
5. Footloose
6. Oppenheimer
7. Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection
8. Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Vol. 4
9. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
10. Willy's Wonderland
11. Dune: Part One
12. Kindergarten Cop
13. The Expendables 4
14. Avatar: The Way of Water
15. Starship Troopers
16. John Wick: Chapter 4
17. Titanic
18. Trolls Band Together
19. Misaion: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
20. 2 Guns

Source: NPD VideoScan First Alert (based on unit sales from reporting retailers)

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/research/top-20-selling-blu-ray-and-4k-discs-for-week-ended-2-17-24/

I listened to a podcast recently that recommended McPherson so pretty excited for that. Also embarrassed to admit these are all blind buys but yeah, I have never seen a Wong Kar Wai movie! 😱

I don't know how old you guys are, but back in the VHS era, widescreen films were more expensive.

I can only imagine that widescreen copies of films on VHS were really a niche product as TVs were predominately square, or rather 4:3. So to get more money out of the punter, they were often packaged with extra gubbins.

This copy of Dances With Wolves I found today in a charity shop just brought up a lot of memories of that time. This copy includes the almost 4-hour cut, the soundtrack CD (which was still sealed) and an exclusive colour brochure (which was missing). Also, it was exclusive to WH Smith. This was a UK chain of glorified newsagents that also sold books and films.

Interview With A Vampire, which I owned, came in a box like this and was packaged with an abridged version of the original novel spread over two cassettes.

In case you were thinking of waiting out for a plain plastic box version, there was a disclaimer informing you that this was the only version of the widescreen VHS tape that was going to be available.

One of the best VHS box sets I had was The 5th Element. The tape came with this huge making of/ art book, which I still have today.

Here I am at Walmart, elbow-deep in decades of movies as other shoppers wheel by without so much as a glance. The bin, about four feet tall, is overflowing with DVDs, to the point where I have to start piling them up on one side just to get anywhere near the center. I’m picking out the movies I’m going to indulge in over the weekend, shuffling through copies of Sonic the Hedgehog, an all-in-one Ben Affleck movie collection, Gremlins, and a hodgepodge of other flicks.

I pull out some old films I’ve never gotten around to watching, like The Ring and the Crank collection (yes, I know I’m behind), and toss them into my shopping cart. The variety in Walmart’s DVD bin is seemingly endless: and for a price of about $5 per disc that you can hang onto forever, you can’t really go wrong. (So long as you don’t care about the highest-quality viewing experience.) The movies will soon make their way into my PlayStation 4 and will hopefully save me from having to pick something out on a streaming app. Walmart isn’t the only place I’ve started looking for DVDs, either. Thrift stores, flea markets, the library, and even my local mall’s FYE have also become places I frequent to get my hands on oft-ignored discs.

After spending years reassuring myself that I don’t need physical copies of movies because of streaming, DVDs have officially reentered my life.

There’s just something far simpler about sifting through a mountain of DVDs that I can pick up and hold in my hands, as opposed to flipping through the thousands of movies across the several different streaming services I’ve subscribed to. Plus, unlike streaming, the cost of DVDs is only going down. I also don’t have to worry about triggering auto-playing trailers when I just want to read the synopsis on the back of the case, and I’m certainly not stuck staring at a screen for hours as I exhaust myself with too many choices. The pile of movies at Walmart is another form of chaos, but it’s the one I’d rather deal with.

...

The overwhelming amount of content isn’t the only thing that’s giving me streaming fatigue; the cost of having a digital library available has also become a factor. Within the past year, nearly every streaming service has raised its prices, including Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, Paramount Plus, Discovery Plus, and Apple TV Plus. Not to mention that Netflix is cracking down on password sharing, which means I can’t even leech off of my parents’ subscription anymore.

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It’s not just the cost of streaming that I have to worry about, either. Last year, I nearly exceeded my ISP’s data cap after I downloaded Baldur’s Gate 3 and kept up my heavy streaming habits. That was all the more reason for me to invest in DVDs.

A familiar label for horror fans is getting a resurrection. Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz are bringing back a new iteration of Anchor Bay Entertainment with the goal to curate a new library of films for distribution, projects that range from new release genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics, and remastered catalog releases.

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“We had an opportunity to take the name of a beloved genre film brand, one we feel a personal connection to, for our new company,” says Zambeck in a press release statement. “This is a new venture, unaffiliated with any previous incarnations. We aim to honor the history and spirit of the past as we look for interesting films that break the mold, and will be discovered by new generations for years to come.”

In Lionsgate’s acquisition of Starz in December 2016, the studio absorbed the North American branches of Anchor Bay Entertainment. The Anchor Bay Entertainment trademark was up for acquisition so Zambeck and Katz took the opportunity to acquire it. That means that the new Anchor Bay Entertainment doesn’t include the previous label’s library, but Zambeck and Katz are quickly looking to build up the new library.

Top 20 Selling Blu-ray Discs

1. Trolls Band Together
2. Oppenheimer
3. Thanksgiving
4. Silent Night
5. Five Nights at Freddy's
6. The Expendables 4
7. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
8. Barbie
9. Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part One
10. The Exorcist: Believer
11. Dune: Part One
12. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
13. Avatar: The Way of Water
14. John Wick: Chapter 4
15. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
16. The Mandalorian: The Complete First Season
17. Meg 2: The Trench
18. The Mandalorian: The Complete Second Season
19. Waitress: The Musical
20. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Source: NPD VideoScan First Alert (based on unit sales from reporting retailers)

Top 20 Selling 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Discs

1. Oppenheimer
2. The Exorcist: Believer
3. Dune: Part One
4. Meg 2: The Trench
5. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
6. Kindergarten Cop
7. The Expendables 4
8. Creed III
9. Shazam! Fury of the Gods
10. Halloween Ends
11. Thor: Love and Thunder
12. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
13. Army of Darkness
14. Avatar: The Way of Water
15. Titanic
16. 2 Guns
17. The Fugitive
18. The Thing
19. Trolls Band Together
20. John Wick: Chapter 4

Source: NPD VideoScan First Alert (based on unit sales from reporting retailers)

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/top-20-selling-blu-ray-and-4k-discs-for-week-ended-2-10-24/