For the week of March 22nd, Disney will release the latest Pixar film, Pete Docter and Kemp Powers' Soul, starring the voices of Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga and Richard Ayoade. One of the many films originally planned for a wide theatrical release in 2020, the release of Soul was of course upended by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. A planned summer release for the film was to be delayed into November 2020, but then in October 2020, just ahead of the film's world premiere in London, Disney announced the film's theatrical release in most countries would be cancelled and that instead, the film would be released on their Disney+ streaming service on December 25th. In countries without the service, Soul still opened theatrically if possible and the film has netted $115 million so far from several territories. The film has received highly positive reviews and already has numerous awards and nominations, including recently winning the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film and nominations for Best Animated Feature at the upcoming 74th British Academy Film Awards and the 93rd Academy Awards.
Available on Blu-ray, as well as on 4K UHD Blu-ray in standard, Best Buy Exclusive SteelBook and Target Exclusive Gallery Book editions, Soul features HDR and Dolby Atmos audio on the 4K UHD disc and several extras spread across two standard Blu-ray discs, including an audio commentary, deleted scenes and several featurettes.
Also new this week from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment is Paul Greengrass' News of the World, starring Tom Hanks, Neil Sandilands, Michael Angelo Covino, Chukwudi Iwuji, and Helena Zengel. Studio description: Nominated for two Golden Globe® Awards and two Screen Actors Guild® Awards, the critically acclaimed and Rotten Tomatoes "Certified Fresh" film is available to own for the first time featuring exclusive bonus content, including deleted scenes, feature commentary with co-writer/director Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips, Bourne Franchise), an inside look into the relationship between movie veteran Tom Hanks and newcomer Golden Globe®-nominee Helena Zengel and much more.
News of the World comes to 4K UHD with Dolby Atmos audio and HDR picture enhancement. Reviewing the disc, Martin Liebman says that the picture quality "couldn't look any better. Here's a 2160p/HDR image, sourced from a native 4K digital intermediate, that is commandingly crisp and fully authentic to its format. The picture's clarity is off the charts...close-ups are superb: absolutely tack-sharp and well capable of getting down to the nearly microscopic level of detail on clothes and faces...The HDR color spectrum is a delight...The picture certainly improves on the excellent Blu-ray in every way: it's naturally sharper, more abundantly colorful and tonally aware, more crisp, and more clear". Extras, which are also in 4K resolution on the 4K UHD disc, include deleted scenes, featurettes and an audio commentary with Greengrass.
Finally for new releases this week, from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment comes the Blu-ray release for the HBO miniseries The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Noah Jupe, Lily Rabe, and Édgar Ramírez. Based on the You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, the six-episode limited series was written and produced by David E. Kelley and directed by Susanne Bier, whose other works include the BBC/AMC miniseries The Night Manager and the Oscar-winning film In a Better World. The Undoing also became the first series in the history of HBO to gain viewers each week over its six-week run and it also became HBO's most-watched show of 2020. Warner's two-disc set contains all six episodes and several short featurettes. A review by Jeffrey Kauffman is available here.
However, this week also has a number of new catalog releases and upgrades. Let's start with Shout Fcatory, whose Scream Factory imprint has a new edition of Paul W.S. Anderson's sci-fi thriller Event Horizon, starring Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, and Richard T. Jones. Sourced from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative, this new collector's edition features all of the extensive extras from previous home video editions, but also adds more than an hour of new interviews with Anderson, Quinlan and other members of the cast and crew. A review of the disc from Stephen Larson, which provides plenty of screenshots from the new remaster and has a full breakdown of the included extra features, is available here.
Also this week from Shout Factory is the US Blu-ray debut for Julia Ducournau's Raw, starring Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laurent Lucas, and Joana Preiss. Description: At 16, Justine is a brilliant and promising student and a strict vegetarian. But when she starts at veterinary school, she quickly encounters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world. Desperate to fit in during the first week of hazing rituals, desperate to fit in at whatever the cost, she strays from her family's principles when she eats raw meat for the first time. Justine will soon face the terrible and unexpected consequences of her actions as her true self begins to emerge.
Shout includes several extras for Raw, including an audio commentary with Ducournau and critic Emma Eastwood, several interviews and featurettes, deleted scenes, trailers and TV spots.
Next for catalog titles, from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is a 4K UHD upgrade for Andrew Niccol's Gattaca, starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law, Gore Vidal, and Alan Arkin. Newly remastered from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, and with HDR picture and Dolby Atmos audio (as well as the original DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio), Gattaca will initally appear on 4K UHD in this country as a SteelBook edition. In his review of the new disc, Martin Liebman says of the picture: "From the moment the film begins the feel for the HDR's benefits are immediately obvious. The white text on black screen is both sharper and far more luminous (and stable; there's some wobble on the Blu-ray) than seen on the previous high definition release but the blue color background to follow black is much more expressive, deep, and dynamic on the UHD. Color output here in general is very good. Next to the Blu-ray, the colors are more dynamic and brighter...Skin tones look terrific. Black level depth and density are perfect. Whites are very bright and healthy. Gattaca looks terrific on the UHD format".
Also this week from Warner Bros Home Entertainment is a 4K UHD upgrade for Gareth Edwards' Godzilla (2014), s Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Bryan Cranston. Released just in time for the upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong the film was the first in Legendary Pictures' "MonsterVerse" and the only one not yet on the 4K UHD format. The film is now equipped with HDR and Dolby Atmos audio on its 4K UHD disc, which will also be available in a Best Buy Exclusive SteelBook edition. A review from Randy Miller is available here.
Finally this week, also from Warner Bros. is a remastered 4K UHD disc for Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition. This single-disc 4K UHD release presents the longer 182-minute cut of the film remastered by Snyder and with the IMAX film sequences now expanded to reveal additional picture information. To get a better idea of the new presentation, please see the trailer below.