Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Warner Bros. Home Entertainent Readies King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Aug. 8) And Everything Everything (Aug. 15) For The Home Entertainment Marketplace


DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph Tribbey
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment had a pair of new theatrical-to-home entertainment product announcements ready for street date assignments on the run-up to the long July 4th holiday weekend … so let’s get right to them.

With a short window for retail order placement, director Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword has been slotted into the Aug. 8 calendar spot for a four-SKU release blitz.
The ARR for that date works out to just 88 days from the film’s theatrical opening to its subsequent arrival in the home entertainment marketplace.  Domestic box office receipts currently stand at $38.7 million.  

With a reported production budget in excess of $170 million, this sort of box office result can’t be good news for the studio (foreign markets did produce better returns, but that still may not be enough to wash away the red ink).

We’d comment on the ever-shrinking digital windows that the Hollywood Studios have become enamored with these days and how it is affecting the theatrical experience, but those observations have long sense fallen on deaf ears.   The home entertainment group will do what they can to stem some of these production losses.

DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph Tribbey
To that point, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is offering up the following for consumers to choose from — a stand-alone DVD edition, a pair of Blu-ray/DVD Combo Packs (one with a 3D viewing option … the premium is nine bucks) and a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack (SRP is the same as the 3D Combo Pack).

As to the bonus features for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, which, by the way, abandons the traditional “legend” of Arthur, Camelot, etc. in favor of CGI-generated warlocks and such (Richard Harris is likely spinning in his grave over this one; et tu David Hemmings), we have no less than eight production featurettes.  These are: “Arthur with Swagger,” “Sword from the Stone,” “Parry and Bleed,” “Building on the Past,” “Inside the Cut: The Action of King Arthur.” “Camelot in 93 Days,” “Legend of Excalibur” and “Scenic Scotland.”

Up next, and heading to home entertainment the following week, Aug. 15, is director Stella Meghi’s film adaptation of the J. Mills Goodloe best-selling novel, Everything, Everything.

DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph TribbeyThe ARR is also just 88 days from its theatrical launch and box office receipts are $33.6
million.

Planned for release are a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and a stand-alone DVD edition.
Maddy Whittier (played by Amandla Stenberg — as Rue in The Hunger Games) is living a lie, but we, the audience, don’t know it (yet).  Nor does she.  She’s 18-years old and cannot go outside her home … she will die if she does so as she is allergic to everything (if you thought peanut butter was a problem, you don’t know the half of it with her).   

Her mother (Anika Noni Rose), a doctor, says that she has SDIC (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency) and can never leave the sanctuary of her climate controlled home … her only contact with the outside world comes in the form of Carla (Ana de la Reguera), her nurse.

This all changes when a new family moves in next door and the teenage son, Olly (Nick Robinson — The Fifth Wave, Jurassic World), spots Maddy in her class cage and begins texting her … a friendship builds and he convinces her to join him on an adventure in Hawaii (so she can walk on the beach), where she will surely die.   End of story, poor Maddy.

DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph Tribbey
Except she doesn’t die … her mother, for personal reasons, has kept Maddy a prisoner all of her life.   The film, wisely, foregoes this aspect of the story and instead focuses on the puppy-love elements of Maddy and Olly’s budding relationship (think about just how sick Maddy’s mother is, but that’s a different story; that’s a horror story). 

Bonus goodies include deleted scenes and the featurette titled “Trapped in Love: The Story of Everything, Everything.”


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