Preordered the Zavvi Steelbook. Would prefer it if Walmart were offering it in the US in UHD; I technically could buy the BD Steelbook and then wait and snag a 4K copy later and just swap it out, since there will probably be no Blu-ray logos or anything on the Steelbook itself so the exact same one can be printed in the US for BD and in the UK for UHD, but that sounds like more work than it’s worth.
Nope. They did for the 2016 movie (they literally hired the same artist, Dan Mumford) and now this one for Frozen Empire (which does not look like Mumford to me), but not Afterlife. The two Steelbooks for Afterlife were the one of the car from the back with the silhouettes to the side of it looking at the sky beam going up, and one of the Ecto in the wheat field.
Glad I preordered it. Although, as previously mentioned, if one has money to spare and really wants the Steelbook, it is almost certainly identical to Walmart’s US exclusive and both will hold two discs, so anyone could just get that one and swap the 4K/BD discs into it.
Looked for another place to put this, but I couldn’t bring up a general home video thread anywhere, so:
Yesterday, Sony announced a new 40th Anniversary edition of The Karate Kid on 4K. It comes with new “retro” cover art designed to evoke the old Columbia VHS tapes with the red border and black backdrop. The Blu-ray.com news post about it is here: https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=34252
Wouldn’t be shocked if Sony, who rarely misses a chance to double-dip on Ghostbusters, will prep a new 4K UHD release for the original movie (and perhaps Ghostbusters II) this year in the same line with the retro cover art. It would be an opportunity for them to release the upgraded Dolby Vision transfers from the Ultimate Collection in wide release, as well as potentially reorganize the bonus features so they’re on film-specific releases instead of bonus discs. The real question would be whether or not they try and dredge up even more new content out of the archives to entice yet another purchase from people who already own the movie. Of course, this is just speculation, but…
Obviously, as a fan, I don’t want to be comparing the financial success of Frozen Empire to Madame Web, but it was the easiest Sony analogue. That film was available for home viewing on digital streaming services 1 month from its theatrical debut, so I’m wondering if we’ll see this available digitally on April 23rd.
Every studio has a different system. Universal pushes everything they can to VOD when it meets some internal metric that they have not revealed. It seems quite mercenary but it must be working for them, because they adopted this system in 2020 after winning their battle with AMC over the 17-day theatrical window. In their case, the movies they push to home release are “premium VOD,” which means a $19.99 rental price tag. A current example would be Ethan Coen’s Drive Away Dolls, which you can rent for $19.99 or purchase for $29.99. The obvious exception to this practice was Oppenheimer, for which Nolan negotiated a lengthy theatrical-only window, which was then lengthened further because the movie was making so much money in theaters. I think the bare minimum on that film was something like 120 days. Madame Web is currently PVOD as well: $24.99 to buy, $19.99 to rent.
Looking up Sony’s last major hit, Anyone But You, the movie released theatrically on December 22nd, and wasn’t available on VOD until February 20th, which is roughly double the window. Also, Madame Web is hitting physical media at the end of April, so if Frozen Empire reaches digital around March 23rd, then we could guesstimate the physical release would potentially land on May 21st or 28th.
Hopefully we won’t have to wait long for details on the release.
I do think it’s a misstep not to do an extended cut. It draws people back in for another watch and worked great for ATC - though there’s an elusive definitive cut to be found there.
The Amazon list is for movies that will be streaming in May for “free” with a Prime subscription, which I doubt will happen with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire for months. That doesn’t mean the movie won’t be available for paid rental and purchase digitally in May.
As deadderek mentioned in the talkback thread, the digital release date is next Tuesday, May 7th. Would expect the physical to follow about a month after, which also makes sense because June 8th would be Ghostbusters Day, so probably June 4th.
