Posted Mon Jun 3, 2024 at 12:24 PM PDT by Matthew Hartman
The 4K UHD train keeps chugging along. As Hollywood struggles at the box office, studios and independent labels keep giving collectors good reasons to stay at home. This month we're seeing a number of first-time upgrades and new releases arriving in 2160p.
The summer season is here and we're getting a number of great reasons to stay at home in the air conditioning and enjoy our collections. Normally, this time of year we'd be rushing out to the theater to see what big hits we'd be getting on disc in a few months, but things aren't stellar at the box office. After several weeks of back-to-back-to-back underperforming films, big-budget studio releases are struggling to scratch back their production budgets. When that happens that means we get the digital and disc releases even faster (which to be honest, is a double-edged sword). For those with a big home theater setup, we have some genuine gems to add to the collection.
For this first frame of the month, we get some first-time entries on 4K, some SteelBook upgrades, and Criterion catching up to a couple of UK and EU releases with Fear and Loathing. It's a little bit of a slow week but things ramp up moving forward.
This next frame we see some bigger releases come through. And by bigger we mean that in every way with Godzilla x Kong making its debut. Keeping things a little more family-friendly we have the Shrek films hitting 2160p but then we get some classy horror entries and an action classic.
This seems to follow a pattern of late where the third week softens a tad for quantity but gives fans some quality new releases. We're seeing a great mix of cult classics, old favorites, franchise favorites, and one of the greatest detective films ever made all coming to 4K UHD.
And here is where studios and independent labels hit the gas. To say this week's releases will be expensive is a bit of an understatement! We have classics, we have comedies, we have comedy classics, we have modern critical darlings that weirdly underperformed at the box office! Hell, Kino Lorber Studio Classics saved four 4K upgrades and new editions just for this frame alone!
And that's all the news that's fit to print - for now. Obviously, release dates can change and there might be some late additions. If/when that happens we'll update our listings and this article ASAP. Happy Collecting!
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