Beverly Hills Cop BD review, plus a 4K Release List update, Warner Archive pre-orders & MGM/Apple

We’ve got just a quick update today, as we’re working on reviews.

On that note, our own Tim Salmons has just turned in a look at Paramount’s new Blu-ray only Beverly Hills Cop: 3-Movie Collection. The 3-disc set includes new HD presentations of all three films (mastered from new 4K scans, which are only available digitally), including the first-ever Blu-ray presentation of Beverly Hills Cop II and III. The set also carries over the previous extras, most of which cover the original film. You can read more about it all here.

Also today, we’ve updated our 4K Ultra HD Release List to include forthcoming (and/or recently released) German UHD titles (available on Amazon.de) including Angel Heart (from Studio Canal), Oldboy and the original Rollerball (from Capelight Pictures), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Princess Bride (from Turbine Media), Evil Dead II (from Jakob GmbH) and Parasite (from Koch Media GmbH). Note that Oldboy appears to have English subtitles, but Parasite does not. [Read on here...]

You can click on the title links to see those listings on Amazon.de.

Speaking of Amazon, all of the Warner Archive Collection’s newly announced Blu-ray releases are now available for pre-order, including Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls (1955) and Sam O’Steen’s Sparkle (1976) on 2/11, and John Huston’s Victory (1981) and It Started with a Kiss (1959) on 2/25. These are in addition to the previously announced Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 1 BD due on 2/18. Here’s a look at the cover art (with Amazon links)...

 

And finally today, this is a little bit of interesting industry news: It appears that Apple has begun holding talks with MGM about acquiring the studio’s catalog for digital distribution, including the Bond films. And there are suggestions that Netflix might be a potential bidder too. I began to have a feeling this might happen a few months ago, as AppleTV+ really doesn’t offer much in the way of exclusive content, and Apple has very deep pockets with which to rectify that. It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out. You can read more here on CNBC and Media Play News.

By the way, another intriguing rumor I’ve been hearing lately within the industry? Sony (Japan) may be interested in shopping Sony Pictures Home Entertainment around to a potential buyer, a-la the recent Disney acquisition of Fox.

All this in the wake of the recent ViacomCBS/Paramount deal to take a minority stake in Miramax, which gives Paramount exclusive distribution of the indie studio’s 700-film library.

This whole streaming landscape is just getting more and more interesting.

Don’t forget that posted our gallery of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in 4K here at The Bits yesterday, listing all of the changes on the new Disney+ streaming version. You can find our previous galleries of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back here by clicking on the title links.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned...

(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

 

 

from The Digital Bits - Bill Hunt's My Two Cents https://ift.tt/2Ucx3ou