For the week of June 14th, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will release Adam Wingard's Godzilla vs. Kong, starring Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, and Shun Oguri. The monster mash-up is the fourth installment of Legendary Pictures MonsterVerse, which has been building towards a conflict between Godzilla and (King) Kong since the release of the previous Kong film Kong: Skull Island in 2017. Originally planned for a 2020 theatrical release, the film was delayed several times and was set to be released in November 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic struck. Initially, the film was set for a theatrical release in May 2021, but with the evolution of the pandemic, those plans changed and at the end of 2020, Warner announced that the film and the rest of its 2021 lineup would receive simultaneous releases in theaters and on WarnerMedia's HBOMax streaming service, a decision that ultimately saw Godzilla vs. Kong moved up to late March 2021. Upon release, the film topped the box office in its first four weeks of release, on its way to over $99 million at the domestic box office, but not before it had released earlier in several international markets and eventually pulled in over $340 million, for a global total of over $440 million, breaking several pandemic box office records. This week, Warner Bros. will offer the film in several editions, including Blu-rayBlu-ray 3D and 4K UHD, as well as a Best Buy Exclusive 4K UHD SteelBook edition.
Reviewing the 4K UHD disc, Randy Miller says: "Fine image detail and textures practically leap off the screen, especially visible in fur, scales, clothing, jungle foliage, and dense cityscapes...It's an incredibly dense and rich image that also owes a lot to the HDR-ready color palette, which showcases rich blues and oranges, copious amounts of vivid neon signage, razor-sharp on-screen graphics and computer displays, and imaginative lighting schemes..." About the disc's Dolby Atmos audio track, Miller describes it as "absolutely reference-level", saying in part: "the mix's robust use of height channels brings a new level of sonic excitement to all the mayhem that unfolds on-screen. From fighter jet fly-bys to torrential downpours...the terrific use of overhead audio blends in seamlessly to create that desirable "sonic bubble" that completely envelops the listener during key moments of the film". Read more of Randy's 4K UHD review here. Additional 1080p screenshots can be found in Randy's Blu-ray review here.
Also new this week, Neil Burger's Voyagers, staring Tye Sheridan, Colin Farrell, Lily-Rose Depp, Fionn Whitehead, and Chanté Adams. Synopsis: With the future of the human race at stake, a group of young men and women, bred for intelligence and obedience, embark on an expedition to colonize a distant planet. But when they uncover disturbing secrets about the mission, they defy their training and begin to explore their most primitive natures. As life on the ship descends into chaos, they're consumed by fear, lust, and the unsatiable hunger for power.
Lionsgate's Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases of Voyagers contain five featurettes as extras.
Also this week, RLJ Entertainment, in association with SHUDDER, will release Justin G. Dyck's Anything for Jackson, starring Sheila McCarthy, Julian Richings, and Konstantina Mantelos. Synopsis: After losing their only grandson in a car accident, grief stricken Audrey and Henry, a doctor, kidnap his pregnant patient with the intentions of performing a "Reverse Exorcism," putting Jackson inside her unborn child.
Randy Miller's review with screenshots for Anything for Jackson can be found here.
Also coming this week from RLJ is a three-disc set for The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Synopsis: Now a decade into the apocalypse, sisters Hope (Mansour) and Iris Bennett (Royale) have grown up inside the walls of one of the few remaining first-world communities. Their home, the Campus Colony, is a satellite settlement with a population of just under ten-thousand, located a hundred miles outside surviving city of Omaha, Nebraska. The sisters' scientist father conducts research over one-thousand miles away in a research facility run by the Civic Republic, an ally of Omaha, but one that does not reveal its location to outsiders. When the sisters receive a message that their father might be in a danger, they defy their own community's rules and enlist their friends Elton (Cantu) and Silas (Cumpston)to embark on a cross-country quest to save him. Leaving their sheltered upbringing behind, these teenagers learn how to fight threats both living and dead as they travel through a beautiful but decaying and dangerous world.
Then its Shout Fcatory's turn, with a Blu-ray for Joe Marcantonio's thriller Kindred, starring Anton Lesser, Fiona Shaw, Jack Lowden, Tamara Lawrance, and Edward Holcroft. Synopsis: After the death of her boyfriend, vulnerable mother-to-be Charlotte (Tamara Lawrance) is taken in by her deceased partner's mother, Margaret (Fiona Shaw), and stepbrother, Thomas (Jack Lawson). But Charlotte's source of comfort soon turns to terror as her benefactors begin to appear increasingly obsessed with her every move. Plagued by mysterious hallucinations, Charlotte finds her suspicions raging with questions about Margaret and Thomas's intentions for her unborn child.
Shout Factory's Blu-ray for Kindred contains a trailer and an audio commentary by director Joe Marcantonio as extras.
Finally for new releases this week, Sony Pictures Classics will release Azazel Jacobs' French Exit, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges.Studio description: "My plan was to die before the money ran out," says 60-year-old, penniless Manhattan socialite Frances Price (Michelle Pfeiffer), but things didn't go as planned. Her husband, Franklin, has been dead for 12 years. With his vast inheritance gone, she cashes in the last of her possessions and resolves to live out her twilight days anonymously in a borrowed apartment in Paris, accompanied by her directionless son, Malcolm (Lucas Hedges), and a cat named Small Frank—who may or may not embody the spirit of Frances' dead husband.
Sony's Blu-ray for French Exit contains deleted and extended scenes as extras.
Turning to catalog titles, Sony will upgrade Wolfgang Petersen's In the Line of Fire, starring Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich, Rene Russo, Dylan McDermott, and Gary Cole. The 1993 thriller sees Eastwood star as a veteran Secret Service agent who failed to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and now must track down a violent psychopath who is hellbent on assassinating the current President of the United States. The film was nominated for three Oscars, including a nomination for John Malkovich as Best Supporting Actor. Now the film has been newly remastered from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, and presented with HDR and a new Dolby Atmos audio option, as well as legacy 5.1 and original 2.0 DTS-HD MA audio tracks.
Finally this week, a release that sitcom fans have waited years for: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment will release Parks and Recreation: The Complete Series on Blu-ray as a 20-disc set.