Now then, in announcement news today Kino Lorber Studio Classics has revealed that they’re working on new Blu-ray editions of Gilles Grangier’s Maigret Sees Red (1963) and Dan Curtis’ Dead of Night (1977). The latter is a TV movie.
Amazon has begun taking pre-orders on the 4K and 4K Steelbook release of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025) from Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment. The street date is still TBA.
Also, Grindhouse Releasing has set Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond (1981) for 4K UHD release on 7/29, a package that will include three cuts of the film with Dolby Vision HDR, as well as a Blu-ray, and a bonus music CD.
Here’s something interesting: Our industry sources are telling us that FUNimation and/or Toho may be quietly planning a new US 4K Ultra HD release of Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi’s Shin Godzilla (2016). The film was released in 4K in Japan, but here in the States only on Blu-ray. It’s worth noting that next year is the film’s 10th anniversary.
And our industry sources are also suggesting that actor/director Clint Eastwood has quietly been working with Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment to oversee the 4K scanning and restoration of many of his catalog films. We know also that P.T. Anderson, David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh, and Wes Anderson have been (or have begun) doing the same. So we would expect some of the fruits of that labor to begin manifesting themselves as actual 4K disc releases over the next year or two.
In other news, we reported on Friday on our social media that Lionsgate is looking into an issue with the 5.1 mix on their new 4K Steelbook release of Abel Ferrara’s King of New York (1990). Stephen reviewed the title here on The Bits last week, and his review discusses the issue in question. Once the problem is identified and corrected, it’s very likely that a disc replacement program will be launched. Rest assured, we’ll have all the details when it goes live.
Speaking of disc replacements, Umbrella Entertainment has also begun shipping replacements for their 4K Ultra HD release of Tinto Brass’s Caligula: The Ultimate Cut. Per the company, the disc apparently utilized an inferior audio file when completing the disc. The fixed disc now has DTS-HD MA 5.1 and has the following serial number: DAVID4969/1-R. You can see what the disc looks like below, thanks to Bits reader Mark S. You should be able to contact Umbrella here to request your replacement copy.
Also today, we’ve begun to notice that some online retailers are starting to feel the impact of the recent import tariffs. For example, both DiabolikDVD and the BFI Shop have begun adding small (5% or so) tariff surcharges to some imported disc purchases. No doubt Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers are doing so as well, though they’re more likely simply to raise their prices. Thus far, most of the actual studio reps we’ve spoken to—at least those who will speak on background about the issue—tell us that they’re attempting to eat the cost increase caused by tariffs for their consumers for as long as they’re able to. But retailers are in a somewhat different situation. In any case, so far these increases are modest but manageable, and we hope that this situation either resolves soon or at least doesn’t worsen.
And in a follow-up to something we reported a couple of weeks ago, our friends at The Screening Room A/V in Colorado Springs, Colorado recently held their annual Projector Shootout, pitting the best and latest offerings from JVC, Epson, and Sony head to head under controlled conditions. Well, our friends John Schuermann and Steve Crabb (of Screening Room AV) will be joined by Kris Deering (Deep Dive A/V), Sammie Prescott Jr (of Projector Central), and Scott Wilkerson (of Home Theater Geeks) on a live podcast at 3 PM today to discuss the results. You can watch at one of these links:
https://www.youtube.com/twit/live
https://www.youtube.com/@HomeTheaterGeeks
It should be interesting, so do check it out!
Finally today, speaking of Wes Anderson, here’s the trailer for his new movie, The Phoenician Scheme (2025). What can I say; the guy makes me laugh...
That’s all for now! 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)