A special debut screening event will be held at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on 9/26, a Rocky Horror Spectacular Tour will be traveling around to 55 cities in the US and Canada from 9/23 to 11/3 (find details at scottstander.com/rocky), the film will be returning to theaters in 4K nationwide in October, and the official Rocky Horror fan convention will take place at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood on 9/27. A new deluxe soundtrack CD will also be released in vinyl, and the Grammy Museum will host a screening on 10/15. More events are expected as well.
Meanwhile, we know that the film has been fully restored in 4K from the original camera negative, and the 4K disc will feature Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Restored original 2.0 mono audio will also be included. It will be presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio on a 66GB disc. The 4K will include the Blu-ray version plus a Digital Code in Steelbook packaging. There will also be a new Blu-ray Combo Pack and a new DVD SKU as well.
Extras will include Rocky-oke: Sing It! (With and Without Vocals), The Midnight Experience with the 35th Anniversary Shadowcast, the Vintage Callback Track (Unrated), the 50 Years and Still Kicking! Trivia Track, audio commentary by Richard O’Brien and Patricia Quinn, the Once in a While deleted song, 9 deleted & alternate scenes, The Search for the 35th Anniversary Shadow Cast, 3 featurettes including Rocky Horror Double Feature Video Show (1995), Beacon Theater, New York City (10th Anniversary), and Song Selection (With and Without Vocals), the Time Warp Music Video (from the 15th Anniversary VHS release), and marketing materials. Here’s what the packaging looks like…
We have another big piece of 4K announcement news today as well: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment has officially set their long-awaited A Nightmare on Elm Street 7-Film Collection for release on 9/30! From the studio’s press release: “From New Line Cinema, the collection includes the original seven films—A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)—along with the uncut versions of A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Dream Child. The collection also includes an alternate ending of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare presented in anaglyph 3D and complete with 3D glasses in the physical collection.” And it looks like most of the legacy special features will carry over. Look for the films to include HDR10 high dynamic range, new Dolby Atmos mixes, and the previous DTS-HD Master Audio mixes as well. Here’s the packaging for that…
In other news today, our friends at the Criterion Collection have announced that they’re bringing back their popular Eclipse line, which will now feature rare film collections on Blu-ray. They’re starting with Abbas Kiarostami: Early Shorts and Features (Eclipse Series 47) in November, which will include 17 films in all. This is great news indeed, because it means we might finally see a couple of great older sets—Postwar Kurosawa and The First Films of Akira Kurosawa—upgraded to Blu-ray, something I would VERY much love to see. In the meantime, the street date on the Kiarostami set is still TBA, but we’ll certainly keep you up to date.
Also today, Kino Lorber Studio Classics has just officially set William Friedkin’s Rampage (1987/92) for release in 4K Ultra HD on 10/14, and it will include both the Original Version and the Recut Version of the film. Also coming that day from KLSC are Alain Delon’s Boomerang (1970), José Giovanni’s Last Known Address (1970), Georges Lautner’s Cop or Hood (1979), and Jess Franco’s Death Packs a Suitcase (1972) on Blu-ray. Meanwhile, they’ve revised the key art for their Airport: The Complete 4-Film Collection due on 4K and Blu-ray on 10/30—note that the films will be available in single-film 4K SKUs as well that day. Also coming that day to 4K is Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth (2009). And coming in October to 4K Ultra HD is Paul Leni’s The Cat and the Canary (1927)!
In other industry news, Skydance’s $8 billion deal to acquire Paramount officially closes today. The new studio will be restructured into three divisions—the film studio, TV media, and direct-to-consumer. For many of us, the big question is what’s going to happen to the Star Trek franchise, which has been driving many longtime fans away in recent years under the stewardship of Alex Kurtzman’s Secret Hideout. The rumor is that Skydance plans to let the Kurtzman deal lapse after the final seasons of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and the 2-season Starfleet Academy, then given the franchise a break for a few years, and ultimately resurrect it for both film and TV under new leadership and a new “Star Trek Studios” shingle, much in the mold of DC Studios, Marvel Studios, or Lucasfilm. But for now, we’ll have to wait and see. You can read more here at Variety, Deadline, and the Hollywood Reporter.
Finally today, I wanted to raise a concern I’ve been hearing from many—and I mean many—Bits readers and physical media fans in recent months, which is that Amazon and other retailers are having real problems shipping Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD titles to customers without damaging them. This is particularly true of Steelbook packaging and boxed sets. What tends to happen is that the online retailers ship them not in sturdy boxes but plastic bags or padded envelopes, and then they get completely crushed in handling either by the warehouse machinery or the delivery people. This is an especially significant problem now, because many of these 4K Steelbook titles and box sets are true limited editions and they sell out quickly. So if you get a damaged copy, you might not be available to get a replacement from Amazon (etc).
When I put out a call for pictures of examples of damaged 4K packaging on our social media channels (see here), the response was overwhelming. Here’s just a small sampling of the MANY pictures we’ve received from readers in the last 24 hours…
We would like to call Amazon’s attention to this issue so they can do better in the future, and we’d like to raise all of the major Hollywood studios and boutique labels to the issue, so hopefully they can address the issue with Amazon and other retailers on their end.
This definitely should not be happening, and it certainly shouldn’t be happening as often as it appears to be. Hopefully, enough said.
All right, back tomorrow with more. Stay tuned!
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)