But here’s the interesting thing: About a day ago, in anticipation of today’s announcement, the French retail site Cultura added a number of upcoming 4K Steelbook titles to their online database in anticipation of opening pre-orders. (I actually urged caution in yesterday’s post about this, until we had some kind of official word or until I was able to confirm with sources.)
Mrs. Doubtfire and Dead Poets Society were among them. But they weren’t alone.
Also listed from the Disney, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, and 20th Century Studios libraries were Michael Bay’s The Rock (1996), Simon West’s Con Air (1997), Jon Turteltaub’s National Treasure (2004), Mark L. Lester’s Commando (1985), and… get this… Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995)!
To no one’s surprise, the titles were very quickly pulled down or made invisible—European retailers are notorious for leaking details of studio physical media releases early, and have been for almost as long as I’ve been editor of The Bits, which is closing in on thirty years now.
But I’m confident that this slate is accurate, and that the rest of those titles will be announced in the weeks ahead.
Now… I knew from a variety of industry sources that Mrs. Doubtfire, The Rock, Con Air, and National Treasure were all being considered by Disney for 4K release (and longtime paying Digital Bits Patreon subscribers will know that I’ve been talking about those titles on Patreon for months—another reason Bits readers should consider a paid subscription there, in addition to the fact that it’s helping us to keep The Bits website going).
But the other titles are a very welcome surprise, particularly Strange Days, which has never even gotten a decent Blu-ray release here in the States (although one was released by Koch Media in Germany back in 2015, and I think a UK version followed a couple years later)! That really gives me hope that we might one day see Kevin Costner’s Open Range (2003) on both Blu-ray and 4K disc.
Frankly, this is a helluva 4K Ultra HD release slate. And while I sincerely wish that Disney would commit to releasing 10-12 4K catalog titles a year, like Warner Bros. does, I’ll certainly take 6-8 great ones—and I think many other 4K fans probably feel the same way today.
Now, I just dearly wish that Marvel and Lucasfilm would get back in the TV series game on Blu-ray and 4K disc, so we can finally get Andor: Season Two, The Book of Boba Fett, Skeleton Crew, Agatha All Along, Daredevil: Born Again, and more.
I don’t know about you, but not having Andor: Season Two on 4K disc is killing my Star Wars fan/collector OCD!
Anyway… what a difference a day makes, right? Well done, Disney! Next time, don’t leave 4K fans hanging for so long. And please… Andor: S2!
In the meantime, both Mrs. Doubtfire and Dead Poets Society will include Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio, as well as (it appears) all of the legacy special features on the Blu-rays in each package.
Here’s the official cover art. We’ll share Amazon links when they go live…
That’s all for now. Stay tuned!
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter/X, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)