WHV Announcement: The Man Who Would Be King (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

 

[Worth]

Fantastic! One of my favourite films, and one that never even had a proper DVD release.

 

[MatthewA]

Originally Posted by Worth

Fantastic! One of my favourite films, and one that never even had a proper DVD release.

This had a beautiful transfer on HDNet Movies (making its poor DVD treatment that much more puzzling). The BD should be even better.

 

[Steve Christou]

Yay! Great film, looking forward to adding it to the collection.

 

[Terry Hickey]

I will definitely be getting this and retiring the flipper disc.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

While I'd prefer a lower priced release, this is a definite buy. Now, can we have The Wind and the Lion please?

 

[John Nelson]

I've been waiting for this one for a long time but am shocked to hear it will actually happen! This is one of the best forgotten movies I know of- the only time Michael Caine and Sean Connery starred together- and the abysmal flipper DVD with terrible audio and missing dialogue did this film no justice. Can't wait to see and hear this in Hi Def!

 

[Scott Calvert]

I'm certainly looking forward to this one but dismayed that awful cover art is now carrying over to digibook packaging as well.


The awful cover art fad has gotten so shockingly bad that it almost seems like an intentional ploy to spite enthusiasts.

 

[Bob Cashill]

Strange, given that the Warner Archive uses original poster art. I guess they figure "the masses" require more obvious images. (This is the same art used for last year's DVD reissue of the title, which was simply a repackaging of the old crap disc.)

 

[Stephen_J_H]

This will be mine, and just in time for my birthday! A personal favourite, which I saw for thefirst time @ the drive-in....... ah, memories.

 

[BethHarrison]

Originally Posted by MatthewA





This had a beautiful transfer on HDNet Movies (making its poor DVD treatment that much more puzzling). The BD should be even better.

Wasn't the original DVD released in 1998? That would explain why it looks so bad.

 

[Bob Cashill]

The need to "flip" the 125-minute movie, which was indeed an early release, was the main source of the frustration.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I could live with flipping the disc if the image quality weren't so horrible.


It's ironic that they couldn't squeeze such a crappy encode onto a single side.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

The only positives to the old "flipper" were the multiple trailers for John Huston films and the EPK-style docu that was included. The uninspiring audio (a very flat sounding Dolby Digital 1.0 track) and the mediocre transfer that required you to flip the disc 1/2 way through the movie were frustrating for someone like me, a fan of the film since early childhood (I was 5 the first time I saw it).

 

[Ransom Stoddard]

Surely they could have gotten Huston and Kipling experts to do a commentary?

 

[BethHarrison]

Originally Posted by Bob Cashill

The need to "flip" the 125-minute movie, which was indeed an early release, was the main source of the frustration.

I think this was caused by the fact initially pressing plants couldn't make dual layer discs, even though it was part of the DVD spec. According the DVD profiler, the first release of The Man Who Would be King was released on 18 November, 1997, so it isn't surprising that it wasn't released on a dual layer single sided disc.


I can recall in mid 1998 a lot of DVDs released in Australia were discontinued and reissued as dual layer versions.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Just an FYI that this is up for preoreder at Amazon, but not under the original placeholder.