My Two Cents
All right, we have a new update on the health of the home entertainment market from the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) for the first half of 2020. And the numbers are not entirely unexpected...
According to the DEG, total home entertainment spending (all categories) was up about 26% for the first half of 2020 (through the end of June) compared to the same period last year.
Total digital spending was up 36% during that period (the specific breakdown was +33% for electronic sales, +33% for VOD, and +37% for subscription streaming). That’s the good news.
The bad news—which by now should not be unexpected—is that packaged goods (read: discs) were down 17.2% in the first half of this year from the same period in 2019. Specifically, Q2 2020 was down 11.11% from Q2 2019, this after a 22.4% decline in Q1 2020 (as we reported here back in early July). [Read on here...]
Okay, we’ve got some significant release and industry news to report today. But first, new disc reviews...
Tim has just posted a review of Pierre B. Reinhard’s Revenge of the Living Dead Girls (1987) on Blu-ray from Severin Films.
And Dennis has turned in his thoughts on Budd Boetticher’s World War II drama The Red Ball Express (1952), now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics.
Also, I’ve just gotten my hands on Arrow Video’s new Pitch Black 4K Ultra HD, so I’m going to have a review of that up by Friday.
But tomorrow is likely to be an interesting news day, as that’s when the industry’s mid-year numbers get released. So I’ll have more on that tomorrow afternoon. [Read on here...]
Today’s post is a quick one as I’m working hard to finish this review of Studio Canal UK’s version of Flash Gordon (1980) on 4K Ultra HD.
The set is spectacular. More on that soon.
Don’t forget, we posted our review of Arrow Video’s version of Flash Gordon (1980) in 4K Ultra HD on Friday.
Note that we also hope to have a review of Arrow’s new Pitch Black 4K Ultra HD sometime later this week as well, so be sure to watch for that.
In the meantime, we have more great 4K news for you today...
Our friends at Kino Lorber Studio Classics have just revealed that they’re going to be releasing Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) on 4K Ultra HD sometime in 2021, licensed from Focus Features—a great sign that more deep catalog Focus titles may be coming to the format as well. [Read on here...]
Afternoon, folks! Today’s update is a quick one, but we’ve got a couple good things for you.
Arrow’s release is a 2 disc set with Flash Gordon in 4K on one disc and the Life After Flash documentary on the other. Studio Canal’s UK release is more elaborate and I’ll be working on a review of that over the weekend, so watch for that here at The Bits on Monday.
Meanwhile, Warner has finally made Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket official for release on 4K Ultra HD and Digital on 9/22. As was the case with 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining, the film has been remastered in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative under the supervision of Kubrick’s longtime personal assistant, Leon Vitali. The presentation will include HDR10 high dynamic range along with the existing English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. [Read on here...]
This is another quick update to let you know that Zavvi has just revealed an exclusive 4K Ultra HD Steelbook edition of JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
It’s now available for pre-order here.
Zavvi has a number of these 4K Steelbook exclusives (you can see some currently available titles here) and some of them tend to sell out relatively quickly.
So we recommend that you act quickly if you want this one... [Read on here...]