The 2-disc edition, as reported yesterday, includes the remastered film with 7.1 DTS-HD MA audio, the all-new Your Favorite Things: An Interactive Celebration “immersive viewing experience with behind-the-scenes images, on-screen lyrics, trivia track and location quiz”, a Music Machine Sing-along, and audio commentaries with Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and director Robert Wise (all on Disc 1), and (on Disc 2) the all-new hour-long The Sound of a City: Julie Andrews Returns to Salzburg documentary.
The 5-disc edition includes the same Disc 1 as above, and also Disc 2 (which is labeled Disc 3 in the 5-disc set), but has three more discs as well including the Musical Stages: Creating The Sound of Music all-new interactive “backlot tour” with in-depth featurettes on the songs, the stage show and movie, the film and sound restoration and the real-life von Trapp family, the A City of Song virtual map of filming locations in Salzburg, Austria, the vintage Rodgers & Hammerstein and The Sound of Music programs, screen tests, rare treasures, interviews, photo galleries and more (all on the new Disc 2), plus Disc 4 which is a DVD version of the film with SD video, an optional Sing-Along Track, the Music Machine Sing-along, and The Sound of Music Tour: A Living Story. Finally, Disc 5 is a CD with an exclusive 50th Anniversary Soundtrack "featuring a selection of international performances of SOM musical favorites."
So there you go. The 2-disc edition has blue highlights on the package, while the 5-disc edition has gold highlights. (See the artwork down below.)
In other announcement news, Warner Home Video has just set a Goodfellas: 25th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray for release on 5/5 (SRP $34.99). It will include the film in HD mastered from a new 4K scan of the original camera neg supervised by Martin Scorsese, all the previous special features, plus an all-new documentary featuring interviews with Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Jack Nicholson, and Joe Pesci, and a 36-page photo book.
Speaking of Warner Home Video, we finally have a good look at what the Blu-ray and DVD cover artwork will look like for their TBA The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. You can see it down below. This is final packaging for Canada, so you can bet the U.S. art will be very similar. We’ve actually linked this art to the respective pre-order pages on Amazon.com (U.S.).
Meanwhile, 20th Century Fox has set Beyond the Lights for Blu-ray and DVD release on 2/24, followed by Drumline: A New Beat on DVD only on 3/3.
20th Century Fox and DreamWorks Animation have also set Penguins of Madagascar for Blu-ray release on 3/17.
Shout! Factory will release Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXII on DVD on 3/24, featuring Space Travelers, Hercules, Radar Secret Service and San Francisco International, plus extras.
Magnolia Home Entertainment has set the Swedish psychological drama Force Majeure for Blu-ray and DVD release on 2/10 (SRP $29.98 and $26.98). Extras will include AXS TV: A Look at Force Majeure and an interview with writer/director Ruben Östlund and actor Johannes Bah Kuhnke.
Kino Lorber has announced that they’ve acquired the North American home video rights to the South Korean thriller A Hard Way, written and directed by Seong-hun Kim. It will be released later in 2015.
Kino has also announced that they’re going to be releasing Stephen King’s Needful Things on Blu-ray in June. The disc will feature a brand new audio commentary with director Fraser C. Heston.
A quick update: We know many of you have been eagerly awaiting CBS’ release of the My Fair Lady: 50th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray, featuring the film as newly restored by Robert A. Harris. The disc was set for release in December and has since been delayed. We’re told it’s definitely still coming. If I had to take a guess, maybe look for a release in the Easter time frame. We’ll post details as soon as we have them.
And finally today, for those of you who may have been waiting for the release of Spacecraft Films’ Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Operations Blu-ray, my friend Mark Gray (who runs the company and has been working tirelessly on the release for months) tells me it’s finally finished, replicated and is about to start shipping. I’m going to review it as soon as possible – it looks pretty terrific for NASA spaceflight enthusiasts.
Here’s a look at more new cover Blu-ray artwork for some of the titles mentioned above. Don’t forget that while the Hobbit art is Canadian, we’ve linked it to Amazon U.S. until we have final official art from WHV…
Stay tuned...
- Bill Hunt