In announcement news today, Anchor Bay Entertainment and The Weinstein Company have set Begin Again for Blu-ray and DVD release on 10/28, from John Carney (the director of Once) and starring Keira Knightley, Adam Levine, and Mark Ruffalo. The digital release happens on 10/17. There’s no word in the press release about extras, if any.
20th Century Fox has set Let’s Be Cops for Blu-ray, DVD and digital release on 11/11. Extras will include audio commentary by Luke Greenfield, audio commentary by Nicholas Thomas, the Brothers in Blue featurette, an image gallery and the trailer. The Blu-ray will exclusively add deleted and alternate scenes, a Camera Test and the Real Funny featurette.
Shout! Factory has set The Soul Man: The Complete Second Season for DVD only release on 10/21.
Lionsgate has set a number of DVD and digital only titles for release in December, including Speak No Evil on 12/2, and In Search of Aliens: Season One, Exodus: The Real Story, and Power Rangers Super Megaforce Volume 1: Earth Fights Back on 12/9.
Cohen Media Group will release Chinese Puzzle on Blu-ray on 10/14.
Also today, FUNimation revealed (at Anime Weekend in Atlanta this past weekend) the list of extras you’ll find on their forthcoming Blu-ray release of Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series (due 12/16). Look for the all-new 68-minute Dinner Aboard the Bebop reunion of the original English dub voice cast, a 95-minute Memo from Bebop: The Dub Sessions Remembered documentary with the English dub voice cast, audio commentary on Sessions 1, 5, 10, 17 and 24 with director Shinichiro Watanabe, composer Yoko Kanno, ADR producer Yutaka Maseba, and members of the original Japanese voice cast (with subtitles, carried over from the previous DVD release), Cowboy Bebop Session #0, an Interview with Wendee Lee (the English voice of Faye Valentine), an Interview with Cartoon Network producer Sean Akins, the original opening and closing songs (with and without text), a pair of Tank! music clips (Full-Size and Club Remix UK versions), Ein’s Summer Vacation, and the U.S. trailer. Remember that there’s a regular Blu-ray version, plus two exclusive BD/DVD Combo versions (one available from FUNimation’s store and one on Amazon) that have special packaging and swag.
And MPI will release The Merv Griffin Show: 1962-1986 on DVD on 11/4 (SRP $129.98). This is a 12-disc set containing 44 classic episodes of the long-lived talk show, plus 7 hours of bonus material.
Finally, here’s something fascinating. You think 4K displays are interesting? Well… Samsung, LG and other manufacturers are already gearing up to start sell you 8K displays in the 2015/2016 timeframe. See this report on the Norwegian website Dinside.no (Google Chrome or Google’s Translate site will translate the page in English for you). Gotta be honest about all this… I have the strong suspicion that most consumers are going to just stick with 1080p until they see where all this ends up and wait to buy new displays and disc technologies until then. 8K and autostereoscopic? Awesome. That’s probably your target goal over the next decade. But until it’s here, real, affordable and it looks like it’s going to stick around a while (wait… no 16K?), I’m not sure anyone but enthusiasts will move past 1080p. Thoughts? Chime in over on The Bits Facebook page – we’d love to hear them. Thanks to Bits reader Michael G. for the link.
Here’s some new cover artwork...
Stay tuned...
- Bill Hunt