And our own Russell Hammond has updated the Release Dates & Artwork section with all the latest Blu-ray, DVD and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray cover art and Amazon.com pre-order links. As always, a portion of anything you order from Amazon after you click through to them though our links goes to help support our work here at The Digital Bits and we surely do appreciate it. It really makes a difference in helping us to keep going. So thank you!
Now then... in release news today, Sony has just The Angry Birds Movie for Blu-ray Combo, Blu-ray 3D Combo, DVD & 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo release on 8/16. The Digital HD release is expected on 7/29. Extras on all versions will include a bonus scene (Chuck’s Rescue), a Symphony Mode, Blake Shelton’s Friends music video, the Making Music! with Composer Heitor Pereira featurette, and a photo gallery. To this, the Blu-ray versions will exclusively add the all-new The Early Hatchling Gets the Worm short, 3 more Hatchlings shorts, deleted scenes, and 6 featurettes (Crafty Birds: How to Build Your Own Piggy Tower, Dance Along Birds and Pigs, Creating the Real World of Angry Birds, Meet the Birds, Meet the Pigs, and Meet the Hatchlings).
Also newly announced by Sony is the DVD and digital only release of the war film Guernica on 8/2.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros Home Entertainment is the DVD only release of the animated Batman Unlimited: Mechs vs. Mutants on 9/13.
Lionsgate will release I Am Wrath on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital on 7/26.
Scream Factory has announced the Blu-ray release of 2-disc William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III: Collector’s Edition on 10/25, just in time for Halloween. There will be a director’s cut of the film on the disc, of sorts. Per Scream: “We are working on putting together a version that will be close to Blatty’s original script using a mixture of various film and video tape sources that we have been provided with. This is still a work in progress and we will update you with more details at the time we announce the full list of bonus materials.” You can see the cover artwork above there.
Also, we have word from the Dawn of the Dead Collector’s Blog that a new 4K restoration of The Dawn of the Dead: European Cut is currently under way. With luck, it will be released on Blu-ray and even 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray at some point soon. Click here for more.
And finally today, some of you may have seen this news from Deadline Hollywood, that Joe and Anthony Russo are going to be adapting Walter Hill’s The Warriors as a TV series with Paramount and Hulu. But check it out… we’ve also learned that there’s going to be a live An Evening with Walter Hill & Larry Gordon event in celebration of The Warriors on 9/15 at the Master Theater in Brooklyn, NY! And here’s the thing: Our old friend and special edition producer J.M. Kenny, of An Evening with Kevin Smith fame, is going to be directing. Looks like it will begin with a screening of the film, followed by a live taping of a cast reunion Q&A event. You can learn more about this at the event’s official website here. So if you’re in the area, it should be a blast.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned...
- Bill Hunt (@BillHuntBits)