Hot on the heels of news of its 4K Blu-ray release of Tombstone, Disney is delving into its vast movie archive again to give another classic the 4K disc treatment. This time the film is Ridley Scott’s Kingdom Of Heaven, and fans of the far superior Director’s Cut extended edition of the film will be delighted to hear that yes, the 4K Blu-ray release will carry this version. In fact, it will carry both Director’s Cut Roadshow and straight director’s cut versions of the film – both of which will benefit from brand new 4K HDR remasters by Disney’s increasingly busy film restoration team.
This 4K remaster of Kingdom Of Heaven happily sees Disney going to the trouble of presenting the film with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, and in the Dolby Vision high dynamic range picture format, with its extra scene by scene picture information. It’s a relief, too, given that the Roadshow and regular Director’s Cuts of this film run to 194 and 190 minutes respectively, to find Disney breaking its habit of releasing its films on 66GB-capacity discs and using 100GB discs instead. The amount of compression that would have had to take place to fit such long films onto 66GB discs likely wouldn’t have looked pretty.
The fan service being shown by Disney to Ridley Scott’s critically acclaimed epic extends, too, to the film being released on May 27 exclusively in a Steel Book form that features gorgeously striking artwork on both its front and back sides, as well as across the gatefold interior. This beautiful packaging will contain no less than three discs, too: The 4K disc carrying the new 4K HDR master of the film, an HD Blu-ray of the same director’s cuts, and a second HD Blu-ray disc given over entirely to extra features.
The 4K and HD Blu-ray movie discs will feature an introduction by director Ridley Scott; an ‘Engineer’s Guide’ to the Roadshow version of the film; and no less than three separate feature-length commentary tracks. The highlight of these commentaries features Scott with star Orlando Bloom and writer William Monahan, with the other two ‘Roadhsow’ commentaries being delivered by what Disney’s press information vaguely describes as ‘Filmmakers’.
The extra features found on the third Blu-ray disc are so extensive that Disney actually hasn’t listed all of them in its announcement about Kingdom Of Heaven’s new physical media release. The studio has provided us, though, with enough details of the release’s bonus content to at least get a feel for the sort of things we can expect to get.
Leading the way is a feature-length “making of” documentary, The Path To Redemption, which is supported by a visit to the film’s sound design suite, and a breakdown of the film’s visual effects. There’s also a compilation reel of clips from the film’s original cinema premieres back in 2005, and a walkthrough of one of the press junkets the filmmakers and stars took part in when promoting their film.
The special features Blu-ray will also feature a gallery of stills from the film; a look at some of its marketing poster designs; deleted and extended scenes complete with optional commentary tracks; and a feature looking at Orlando Bloom’s work on the film. That’s it for the features Disney explicitly describes in its press materials, but the studio does add at the end that there will be “Additional featurettes and much more.”
If the remastering work by Disney’s restoration team for Kingdom Of Heaven delivers results as good as those we’re getting with the upcoming Tombstone 4K Blu-ray, this will definitely be another release that film and physical media fans will not want to miss.
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