For the week of July 26th, Paramount Home Media Distribution will release John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II, starring Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, and Cillian Murphy. The horror sequel had its world premiere on March 6th, 2020 in New York and was intended to open on March 19th, 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic caused Paramount to pull the film worldwide just days before its release and after already spending tens of millions in advertising dollars. The film then moved around the calendar several times before it finally received its worldwide theatrical release on May 28th, 2021, over fourteen months later than originally planned. That strategy appears to have paid off, as A Quiet Place Part II subsequently broke several pandemic box office records, including an opening weekend of $58.5 million, which marked the best opening weekend since Paramount's own Sonic the Hedgehog opened over a year earlier in February 2020. The film has received positive reviews, making over $157 million domestically and over $290 million worldwide thus far. Paramount's discs will have Dolby Atmos audio, while the 4K disc also has HDR and Dolby Vision. Several featurettes are also included. Note that a Best Buy Exclusive SteelBook edition will also be available.
Other new releases this week include American Gods: Season Three. The three-disc set includes all ten episodes of the third season, along with over 40 minutes of bonus content. Reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman is impressed with the picture quality, saying: "a tradition with this series has been some pretty spectacular looking high definition presentations, and that continues apace with this...season...detail levels are generally excellent throughout, and fine detail is able to more often than not survive any number of lighting, grading and special effects choices." Read the full review for the set here.
Also from Lionsgate this week is Randall Emmett's Midnight in the Switchgrass, starring Bruce Willis, Emile Hirsch, Megan Fox, Lukas Haas, and Tyler Jon Olson. Synopsis: An FBI agent and Florida State officer team up to investigate a string of unsolved murder cases.
Finally from Lionsgate this week is Vaughn Stein's thriller Every Breath You Take, starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Sam Claflin, Emily Alyn Lind, and India Eisley. Synopsis: A psychiatrist, whose client commits suicide, finds his family life disrupted after introducing her surviving brother to his wife and daughter.
Turning to catalog titles, first up is Shout Factory, who have a new Collector's Edition Blu-ray for David Cronenberg's cult thriller The Dead Zone (1983), starring Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lom, and Anthony Zerbe. Based on the novel by Stephen King, The Dead Zone finds Walken as a schoolteacher, who suffers a car accident and slips into a long coma, from which he awakens with psychic abilities. This new Shout release has been sourced from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative, and features a glut of new and archival extras, including new interviews with actress Brooke Adams, production manager John M. Eckert and associate producer Jeffrey Chernov, no less than four new audio commentaries, including one with director of photography Mark Irwin, and much more.
Also from Shout this week is the US Blu-ray debut for Christophe Gans' film Brotherhood of the Wolf, starring Samuel Le Bihan, Vincent Cassel, Émilie Dequenne, Monica Bellucci, and Jérémie Renier. The two-disc set contains the director's cut of the film, with several extras housed on a second Blu-ray. A full review of the set from Brian Orndorf is available here.
Finally this week, two releases from Arrow Video. First is a 4K UHD upgrade for Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, starring Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Enrico Maria Salerno, Eva Renzi, Umberto Raho and Renato Romano. Argento's 1970 debut features a new 4K scan from the original camera negative by Arrow Films, with HDR and Dolby Vision. Both Italian and English audio tracks are included in lossless mono, and both English and English SDH subtitles are included. Extras include an audio commentary, visual essays, interviews and more, allwith limited edition packaging, including a booklet, lobby cards and a double-sided poster.
Also from Arrow this week is a Blu-ray box set: Vengeance Trails: Four Classic Westerns. The set contains Lucio Fulci's Massacre Time (1966), Maurizio Lucidi's My Name is Pecos (1966), Massimo Dallamano's Bandidos (1967) and Antonio Margheriti's And God Said to Cain (1970), with all films from 2K scans, all but one done by Arrow for this release. Across four discs, extras include commentaries for all films, new interviews and galleries for all four films, all housed in limited edition packaging, with a booklet, double-sided poster and reversible artwork.