Arrow Announcements, Speculation & Wild, Irresponsible Conjecture

[Finch]

another month where the US titles leak, people say "eh", and then the UK exclusive ends up being something big.

FWIW, I'm excited about The House That Screamed and indifferent to Boyhood.

[What A Disgrace]

The second noir boxed set isn't nearly as exciting as the first was (a long time ago), but the home video world has been so awash with big film noir boxed set releases that I'm not sure what else a volume 2 might otherwise feasibly contain! I haven't seen any of the films except The Suspect, either, and they all sound interesting, so I have no reason to complain about the selection.

[therewillbeblus]

Agreed, I know both The Suspect and Thunder on the Hill have their fans here but I wasn’t impressed with either

[domino harvey]

What are you both referring to?

[ianungstad]

Additionally there was this twitter post from Fran Simeoni from back in March:

https://twitter.com/Frangipane13/status ... 1543835648

This deal will sign today and includes some mega titles I'm super proud of acquiring. Two of which on this list!
https://letterboxd.com/jlalibs/list/blu ... st-wanted/

Now that we know the new studio deal was for Paramount titles, a user by the name of Barndoor on the other forum went through the list and picked out all the Paramount films, which whittled the possibilities to:

Bringing Out The Dead
Real Life
A Simple Plan
Lookin' to Get Out
The Keep

It was pointed out that Mann is not going to let The Keep happen and I don't see one of the titles being Lookin' to Get Out.
I personally think the 2 Fran hinted at were Bringing Out the Dead and A Simple Plan. They just released a Scorsese and would be very interested in the Raimi. That being said, if we had to drop one of those and got Real LIfe, I'd be happy too!

Bringing Out the Dead would be huge, but definitely US-only unfortunately for us in the UK. I love A Simple Plan so would be very excited for that (was asking for it quite recently in fact as I finally saw it on iPlayer).

Hope this Paramount deal isn’t US-only…someone pointed out the usual listings aren’t showing up for Black Sunday in the UK, so I’m a bit sad now if we don’t get it here. So close yet so far…let’s hope they can work things out for the UK ASAP!

Black Sunday is apparently US/CA only so there will be US/CA only titles. (Which is further evidence in my opinion that the Scorsese is one of the two Fran was hinting at back in March)

I'm sure there will be plenty of UK only stuff too.

[dwk]

Didn't Fran hint that they signed a US deal with someone they had previously licensed titles from in the UK? So that may mean the new Paramount deal is US only.

[Finch]

Re Black Sunday disc; from the layout and book designer at Arrow:

Compared to the earlier Australian release, we did a substantial amount of additional clean-up on the master (overseen by James White and James Pearcey) and unearthed the original mono audio for the first time on Blu-ray (in addition to the 5.1 and 2.0 remixes).

[dwk]

Three audio tracks! But, the Greatest Home Video Label In The World said such things are redundant.

[Maltic]

The second noir boxed set isn't nearly as exciting as the first was (a long time ago), but the home video world has been so awash with big film noir boxed set releases that I'm not sure what else a volume 2 might otherwise feasibly contain! I haven't seen any of the films except The Suspect, either, and they all sound interesting, so I have no reason to complain about the selection.

Indeed a lot has happened on that front since the previous Arrow set 4-5 years ago.

Most of the notable noirs OTTOMH that haven't had a BD are presumably somewhere on the WAC schedule: Angel Face, Crime Wave, Where Danger Lives, Mystery Street, They Drive By Night, maybe Slightly Scarlet?

[Maltic]

What are you both referring to?

Four Film Noir Classics Vol 2

[domino harvey]

Wow, that is indeed a poor collection of films. Get Kino's the Suspect and be done

[swo17]

Still waiting for someone to do The Devil Thumbs a Ride

[yoloswegmaster]

It could be for Rolling Thunder, though I guess it would be a 4K only release since the old blus are still in-print (at least in the U.S.).

EDIT: Nevermind, the clue is most likely for some slasher called Lovers Lane since it features a killer with a hook for a hand, not to mention the clue for "LL" that appeared on Fran's list of hints last year but hasn't been released yet.

[yoloswegmaster]

The US/CA titles have already leaked:

Lovers Lane
Assassination Bureau
Heart of Dragon


Once again I'm hoping that the UK-only releases are more interesting since this slate doesn't do much for me. I could see one the UK-only titles being the 4K release of Naked Lunch since the restoration is premiering next month at the Berlin Film Festival. It's also interesting to note that Arrow has only released 5 4K titles in the U.S. from April 2022 - April 2023 (with none being announced stateside so far in 2023), while releasing 14 in the U.K in the same time span.

[rapta]

Also a chance we get The Street Fighter Trilogy in the UK as Arrow mentioned they'll be on Arrow Player soon. But yeah, Naked Lunch would be great (I missed out on the barebones StudioCanal disc, and Arrow are bound to improve in every area).

Such a shame these Paramount titles are US only...I wonder what the heck is going on with Paramount UK for these to not get secured at Arrow's end for the UK market.

[swo17]

Is Heart of Dragon still with 88 in the UK?

[dwk]

The guesses on Arrow's teases are always like "Goodfellas. OMG" and then it ends up being some Nico Mastorakis piece of shit.

Is Heart of Dragon still with 88 in the UK?

It is still available from their website.

[yoloswegmaster]

The UK-only releases are going to be a 4K UHD for Naked Lunch and the Street Fighter Trilogy.

[yoloswegmaster]

According to the Blu.com forum, The Last Starfighter is going to be getting a 4K UHD. Not sure where they are getting this info from though.

[yoloswegmaster]

Latest clue for Friday's announcements:



Maybe it's a clue for Michael Mann's Blackhat?

[cdnchris]

Fear of the Black Hat?

I was also trying to associate it with some Nico Mastorakis crap but nothing was clicking with the image.

[Boosmahn]

If it's Blackhat, could the "h" be for "hacker?"

It would be good to have the director's cut on disc.

[dwk]

Fear of the Black Hat?

I was also trying to associate it with some Nico Mastorakis crap but nothing was clicking with the image.

I think that is an ITC( or ITV title), which may put the US rights with Shout Factory and UK rights with Network.

[therewillbeblus]

The H is significantly a road, so it could easily be Road to Perdition or something, given Arrow's abstract "clues." Personally, I'm hoping for a Lifeforce UHD including the DC to trump Shout!'s lame exclusion, where the H stands for the life force supporting the U and D in "UHD."

[yoloswegmaster]

According to others, the clue could be for some Terence Hill western titles as his official hat merch is said to look similar to the hat in the clue (though I personally don't see the resemblance), and Arrow are planning on releasing a Western boxset.