Post Summary
Ever since the Disney/20th Century Fox merger, the trickle of studio titles on Blu-ray and 4K UHD has been low. A lot of the classics from the Fox library haven’t even made their way to Blu-ray, let alone 4K disc. Well, a new report from Digital Bits and some news from yesterday seem to change that. According to the report, we’re not only getting Commando on 4K UHD but also Strange Days and The Rock on 4K.
While we don’t have other movies on 4K yet, this is a fantastic grouping of titles from Disney to come out on the best possible video format. The news of these releases comes from a French retail site Cultura. They mistakenly put up a number of upcoming 4K Steelbook titles to their online database in anticipation of pre-orders. The full list of movies were Mrs. Doubtfire, Dead Poets Society, The Rock, Con Air, National Treasure, Commando, and Strange Days.
The titles were quickly pulled down and made invisible, which is also a nice sign that there’s some validity here. We got confirmation that Mrs. Doubtfire and Dead Poets Society were coming to 4K straight from Disney yesterday. The reason this is an interesting crop of movies, is that some don’t even have a Blu-ray release.
Strange Days Headlines A Strong Batch
The 1995 film Strange Days has never had a US region Blu-ray release. That’s really the most exciting thing about an incredibly packed 4K lineup of releases. Kathryn Bigelow directed the film that takes place over New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles. Ralph Fiennes is a an ex-cop dealing in an electronic device that allows users to experience other people’s experiences. He discovers a snuff version of it and he tries to solve the crime alongside a bodyguard (played by Angela Bassett). It’s a future noir film and has been reclaimed in recent years as a classic of the 90s and of the genre.
It has been unavailable to US audiences in HD on disc until now. There’s been an HD version streaming on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel. Fans of physical media have been waiting for this release forever now. I’d say that a lot of physical media holy grail lists of releases probably include Strange Days on 4K.
The other films are also action classics from the 80s/90s like Con Air and The Rock, which have either been out of print on Blu-ray or needed a 4K restoration.
This is a momentous slate of 4K releases and let’s hope that we get even more from Disney/Fox in the coming weeks and months.
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