Fox Catalog Titles on Blu

[FrauBlucher]

Now this is a milestone!

[flyonthewall2983]

James Cameron confirmed work on a new wet-gate 4K scan of The Abyss, and a possible release on Blu-ray early next year.

[hearthesilence]

Now this is a milestone!

"Please. I don't need your charity."

[FrauBlucher]

Wednesday Disney officially takes over 20th Century Fox. It'll be interesting to see what direction the Fox catalogue goes in, but I don't have confidence that Disney will be cinephile friendly. The catalogue will end up on the Disney streaming service, but can't see anymore than that.

[captveg]

Disney has licensed titles to Kino (and more selectively to Criterion), so maybe they'll be okay with Fox titles continuing to be licensed to Twilight Time, Shout Factory and perhaps a new batch to Kino.

[flyonthewall2983]

The catalogue will end up on the Disney streaming service, but can't see anymore than that.

I don't know if all of the Fox catalogue goes to the new service, they are aiming to be family-friendly. I am guessing the more non-family movies would go to Hulu, where they might wind up taking over first-run TV rights from HBO.

But what it means for physical media who knows. Disney let Criterion put out the three movies Wes Anderson directed for them on Blu-ray, so maybe they could have the same leeway for Fox.

[FrauBlucher]

How will Disney handle Fox Archive for repertory bookings... This needs to be watched going forward, as this could be an indicaation of what's to come for the Fox catalogue

[hearthesilence]

I finally got Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on BD despite some concerns cited elsewhere, and unfortunately it's as disappointing as one might be expect. The grain "management" is horrible, similar to the strange effects seen on the Criterion BD for The Earrings of Madame de... where chunks of detail seem to clump together in Bizarro fashion and the edges of people and certain objects look unusually defined. It's been the only HD option for a while anyway, so what can you do?

[tenia]

I'd say it's bad, but not Madame De's "water-painting" bad. It made me think of a Lowry restoration, but it's a shame anyway it's been handled this heavily.

[hearthesilence]

I'd say it's bad, but not Madame De's "water-painting" bad.

It's not uniformly that bad but look at the shot near the beginning when that group of men first see Monroe and Russell arriving. Something funky is going on with Harry Carey Jr.'s face, though oddly it seems to improve when they cut back to the men after we get their POV shot of Monroe and Russell.

Anyway there's probably no point in me splitting hairs, I think we all agree it's just bad and needs to be re-done.

[tenia]

Oh yeah, it's bad anyway and vastly obsolete now. I just think that Madame de really is even worse (though it's no consolation for Blondes).

[Ribs]

4K releases of Speed and Heat coming in May, putting paid to the baseless rumor that nonetheless caught like wildfire the live action catalog was just totally dead

[flyonthewall2983]

Hopefully Speed has all of the extras from the special edition DVD they did back 20 years ago too. That really stands up as a perfect action film of that time in the mold of Die Hard and Terminator 2. Kind of interesting that it took however long between that and Blue Velvet for someone to see that kind of potential in Dennis Hopper, to be a villain in major action movies (only to be completely squandered when he did Waterworld).

[willoneill]

4K releases of Speed and Heat coming in May, putting paid to the baseless rumor that nonetheless caught like wildfire the live action catalog was just totally dead

Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits tweeted that his sources told him these releases are indeed happening ... presumably not the same sources who told Bill last year that there would be no more Disney/Fox catalogue 4K releases.

[captveg]

4K releases of Speed and Heat coming in May, putting paid to the baseless rumor that nonetheless caught like wildfire the live action catalog was just totally dead

Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits tweeted that his sources told him these releases are indeed happening ... presumably not the same sources who told Bill last year that there would be no more Disney/Fox catalogue 4K releases.

I wouldn't be surprised if these were prepared in 2019 pre-merger for release on the heels of the 4K UHDs of Die Hard and Alien. Perhaps the lack of pandemic theatrical revenue has Disney changing their minds a bit about catalog titles, especially if these were ready to go.

We know The Abyss was being worked on for 4K in 2019 as well, so fingers crossed (though Cameron's lack of signature has held it and True Lies up for years according to several sources).

[Ribs]

As I and others reiterated at the time, Bill Hunt often ascribes "his sources" to just literally be parroting things already said earlier on Blu-ray.com, which is viewed as confirmation from a second source and fact instead of just repeating a ill-founded rumor. The changing terms of the thing, from, "well, *after* Home Alone" to "well, not including animated movies" really seemed a red flag to me. The gap between Disney's previous catalog release and Home Alone and Home Alone to these is an extra month or two. Nothing seems different. I really, really doubt there's anything left in the queue from the handover which has now been taking place for three years.

[Stefan Andersson]

The Tora! Tora! Tora! blu contains the Japanese release version, 10 minutes longer than the US release.

Relevant quote:
"the set contains the entire Japanese release version of the movie, which includes ten minutes of footage not seen in the American cut. Not surprisingly, the extra footage is dedicated to the Japanese sequences and contains one bizarre, largely superfluous sequence centering on two cooks aboard one of the war ships."

Source:
http://www.cinemaretro.com/index.php - Dec. 07, 2021 post

According to the post, this version is not listed on the packaging.

[L.A.]

Ignite Films’ Invaders from Mars (1953) 4K UHD

[yoloswegmaster]

James Cameron confirmed to a French journalist that The Abyss will be released on 4K by March next year.

[beamish14]

James Cameron confirmed to a French journalist that The Abyss will be released on 4K by March next year.

I wonder when Strange Days will finally get one as well.

[captveg]

Samuel Goldwyn Films will be re-issuing the Blu-rays of Oklahoma! (1955) and South Pacific (1958) on 10/31/23, which seems to indicate Disney refused to renew the licensing agreement Fox had for at least some of the Rodgers and Hammerstein productions.

[Drucker]

Finally, The Abyss and True Lies, have been announced. Aliens, too.

[Finch]

Fingers crossed Arrow can pry The Fly from Disney's hands and give it the 4k release it deserves. The BD is ancient.

[flyonthewall2983]

Strange Days would be a good title for Arrow

[dwk]

Where is this talk about Arrow cracking into the Disney vault coming from? Did I miss some rumor or is it just wishful thinking?