The Christmas & New Year’s holidays are one of the traditional doldrum periods for new releases in any calendar year.

But don’t worry, before you know it, things will pick up again.

2024 is going to be a transitional year for releases (and the RoundUp) as we watch two of our longtime featured retailers stop distributing movies-on-disc.

It’s not altogether surprising. This will be our 20th anniversary year compiling the RoundUp and the one constant in our lives is…CHANGE!

Safe shopping, RoundUppers! Have great holidays and hope you get everything you want! See you in the new year!

Thanks for all you do every week, Mike. Merry Christmas!

Thanks, Adam!

We've been kicking around these halls together a long time, eh?

And we'll always have MFL at the Spectrum!

Mike Frezon said:

2024 is going to be a transitional year for releases (and the RoundUp) as we watch two of our longtime featured retailers stop distributing movies-on-disc.

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Two? Best Buy and who else? Did I miss something?

Anyway, thank you very much for another year of hard work on these Roundups, Mike. It is always appreciated even on weeks when I don't buy anything.

Jake Lipson said:

Two? Best Buy and who else? Did I miss something?

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Target, too.

Mike Frezon said:

Target, too.

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When did Target announce they're not selling discs any longer?

Nothing for me these weeks but thanks for the prices, Mike!

Robert Crawford said:

When did Target announce they're not selling discs any longer?

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I don't think they've officially stopped but at the store by me, they no longer appear to be selling UHD at all and they only have one small island of DVDs and Blu-rays so Target might as well be done for me.

Robert Crawford said:

When did Target announce they're not selling discs any longer?

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I thought I had read elsewhere on the forum that Target was following suit. But maybe not.

I can tell you they are listing only a few pages of upcoming discs right now...whereas I had been wading through 12-14 pages of titles in the past. And they are not listing any discs that would hit after the first quarter. It's not looking good. But maybe they'll hang tough.

Like anything else, time will tell.

Mike Frezon said:

And they are not listing any discs that would hit after the first quarter.

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Are there that many discs that have been announced yet that would hit after the first quarter?

Jake Lipson said:

Are there that many discs that have been announced yet that would hit after the first quarter?

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The Criterion March releases, the week of March 26th are the furthest out that’s been announced.

Based on my last month of attempting to get new releases at Target, they're already 90% of the way complete to dropping physical media completely.

Happy Christmas and New Year, Mike. I always appreciate your weekly column.

So anecdotally, I do a sort of annual wander-around of retail stores to survey the changing landscape, from how things are merchandised to what places seem to be cutting back, and so on. Chain-wide, Target stores pulled all their 4K/Blu/DVD some weeks back...due to simple re-merchandising of that whole section. Gone is what I called their brightly-lit "convenience store" New Releases rack that it feels like only went in within the last few years. They've shifted to an endcap with vinyl music facing front, and all the new-er movie/TV discs on one lateral side with more vinyl and music box sets on the other.

Various clerks have confirmed this to me anecdotally, along with the info that I think Bill at The Bits has reported that Target and Walmart are both moving to only "refreshing" stuff on the floor every other week. For some time now, both chains have had more stuff "in the back" and available for Pickup order than they merchandise. Blame whatever one might want (my money is on them continuing to cut back staffing and also trying to combat retail theft), but that's how things have been. Looks are everything though, and their choice to not put stuff out on the floor sure makes it *look* like they've given up on physical media sales even though they haven't.

Congrats on 20 years, Mike! This recurring thread has been one of my favorite regular haunts longer than so SO many things online that simply no longer exist. Cheers to all the blood, sweat, and keyboard tears put in all this time.

It is worth noting that Universal has just recently scheduled the Blu-ray release of The Holdovers for January 2. This is a really short turnaround time between the announcement being made at the end of last week and the release date coming next week. @Mike Frezon could not have known to put this in the Roundup because the release date was not confirmed when he posted this thread.

I wanted to add a mention of it now because it is a really great film and I am looking forward to adding it to my collection. As of this writing, Amazon is currently charging $22.95 for the Blu-ray.