Ben-Hur Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-ray Details (Updated)
HomeBen-Hur Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-ray Details (Updated)
Posted June 7, 2011 04:21 PM by Webmaster
Warner Home Video has sent retailers and select members of the press a photo booklet and sneak peek DVD that reveals further details about the forthcoming release of the Ben-Hur: Ultimate Collector's Edition box set, its pack-in collectibles and its bountiful supplemental package. The 3-disc Blu-ray edition is set to arrive this fall in limited quantities and numbered for exclusivity, although an exact release date has yet to be announced.
Update: Amazon is now accepting pre-orders. The cost of the Ultimate Collector's Edition set is currently $44.99. It has also been revealed that the film and special features are spread across three Blu-ray discs; two for the feature film and one for the supplemental content.
As first reported in March, the 50th Anniversary Blu-ray release of Ben-Hur will feature a newly minted frame-by-frame restoration created from the original 65mm camera negative at a resolution of 6K; effectively achieving six times the resolution of the previous DVD release. The results, at least as teased in the following before/after comparison photographs, are promising:
Note: The faint texture that appears overtop the before and after shots is inherent to the press booklet
photographs, not the film's restoration or the Blu-ray's subsequent video presentation.
A variety of special features will be spread across the Blu-ray edition's three BD-50 discs, chief among them Charlton Heston & Ben-Hur: A Personal Journey, an all-new, feature length, high-definition documentary that chronicling Heston's life while filming Ben-Hur. It not only includes a wealth of behind-the-scenes content, it also includes rare home movie footage from the Heston family.
Left: Charlton Heston walking with son, Fraser. Top Right: Charlton Heston's first day in the chariot, with
Chariot Race stunt co-ordinator Yakima Canutt. Bottom Right: Charlton Heston and his son, Fraser.
In an interview with Christianity Today, Fraser Heston, Charlton Heston's now 56-year-old son, says: "My earliest memory was of my dad coming home in his chariot driver's outfit. I think I assumed he was a professional charioteer. I remember him bringing sand from the Roman arena for my sandbox, and being told this was not just any sand. It was MGM sand!" He continues, "We recently produced a film about my dad called Charlton Heston & Ben-Hur: A Personal Journey. In it, we used a lot of 16mm footage that my mom took. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff of Dad driving the chariot around and me in it. It's pretty cool."
Other special features, most of which have been made available in previous releases of the film, include:
The Ultimate Collector's Edition also offers filmfans two collectible books in a three-tier collector's case. The first book, "Charlton Heston: The Ben-Hur Diaries" is the most intriguing. An exclusive look into the Oscar-winning actor's experience while making the award-winning film, this high-quality reproduction of Charlton Heston's personal and insightful diary documents events that occurred from January 1958 through April 1960; from a time before production of the film begain all the way through Heston's Oscar win. The book includes personal photos from the Heston family and some of Heston's own sketches.
"I suppose this could be called a pivotal year. In it I made the picture that will probably be not
only the most important I'll ever make, but will either finally press me into the thin airless regions
where the supernovae drift, or demonstrate conclusively that my orbit is a different one."
- Charlton Heston, journal entry on Wednesday, December 31, 1958
The second exclusive book is a more traditional pack-in that features rare photographs, production art and reproductions from the original theatrical press book.
Ben-Hur won a record-setting eleven Academy Awards, among them Best Picture (producer Sam Zimbalist), Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Charlton Heston), Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Best Color Cinematography (Robert L. Surtees), Best Film Editing (Ralph E. Winters and John D. Dunning), Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Miklos Rozsa), Best Color Art Direction and Set Decoration (William A. Horning, Edward Carfagno and Hugh Hunt), Best Sound (Franklin E. Milton, MGM Studio Sound Department) and Best Special Effects (A. Arnold Gillespie, Robert MacDonald and Milo Lory).
Update: Amazon is now accepting pre-orders. The cost of the Ultimate Collector's Edition set is currently $44.99. It has also been revealed that the film and special features are spread across three Blu-ray discs; two for the feature film and one for the supplemental content.
As first reported in March, the 50th Anniversary Blu-ray release of Ben-Hur will feature a newly minted frame-by-frame restoration created from the original 65mm camera negative at a resolution of 6K; effectively achieving six times the resolution of the previous DVD release. The results, at least as teased in the following before/after comparison photographs, are promising:
Note: The faint texture that appears overtop the before and after shots is inherent to the press booklet
photographs, not the film's restoration or the Blu-ray's subsequent video presentation.
A variety of special features will be spread across the Blu-ray edition's three BD-50 discs, chief among them Charlton Heston & Ben-Hur: A Personal Journey, an all-new, feature length, high-definition documentary that chronicling Heston's life while filming Ben-Hur. It not only includes a wealth of behind-the-scenes content, it also includes rare home movie footage from the Heston family.
Left: Charlton Heston walking with son, Fraser. Top Right: Charlton Heston's first day in the chariot, with
Chariot Race stunt co-ordinator Yakima Canutt. Bottom Right: Charlton Heston and his son, Fraser.
In an interview with Christianity Today, Fraser Heston, Charlton Heston's now 56-year-old son, says: "My earliest memory was of my dad coming home in his chariot driver's outfit. I think I assumed he was a professional charioteer. I remember him bringing sand from the Roman arena for my sandbox, and being told this was not just any sand. It was MGM sand!" He continues, "We recently produced a film about my dad called Charlton Heston & Ben-Hur: A Personal Journey. In it, we used a lot of 16mm footage that my mom took. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff of Dad driving the chariot around and me in it. It's pretty cool."
Other special features, most of which have been made available in previous releases of the film, include:
- Ben-Hur, A Journey Through Pictures: An audiovisual re-creation assembled using stills, storyboards, sketches, music, dialogue and other archive materials
- Ben Hur: The 1925 Silent Film
- 2005 Documentary, Ben-Hur: The Epic That Changed Cinema
- 1994 Documentary, Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic
- Original Screen Tests
- Vintage Newsreel Gallery
- Highlights from the 4/4/60 Academy Awards Ceremony
- Theatrical Trailer Gallery
The Ultimate Collector's Edition also offers filmfans two collectible books in a three-tier collector's case. The first book, "Charlton Heston: The Ben-Hur Diaries" is the most intriguing. An exclusive look into the Oscar-winning actor's experience while making the award-winning film, this high-quality reproduction of Charlton Heston's personal and insightful diary documents events that occurred from January 1958 through April 1960; from a time before production of the film begain all the way through Heston's Oscar win. The book includes personal photos from the Heston family and some of Heston's own sketches.
"I suppose this could be called a pivotal year. In it I made the picture that will probably be not
only the most important I'll ever make, but will either finally press me into the thin airless regions
where the supernovae drift, or demonstrate conclusively that my orbit is a different one."
- Charlton Heston, journal entry on Wednesday, December 31, 1958
The second exclusive book is a more traditional pack-in that features rare photographs, production art and reproductions from the original theatrical press book.
Ben-Hur won a record-setting eleven Academy Awards, among them Best Picture (producer Sam Zimbalist), Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Charlton Heston), Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Best Color Cinematography (Robert L. Surtees), Best Film Editing (Ralph E. Winters and John D. Dunning), Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Miklos Rozsa), Best Color Art Direction and Set Decoration (William A. Horning, Edward Carfagno and Hugh Hunt), Best Sound (Franklin E. Milton, MGM Studio Sound Department) and Best Special Effects (A. Arnold Gillespie, Robert MacDonald and Milo Lory).
