Lionsgate has released the details for its upcoming DVD/Blu-ray release of The Hunger Games.
The theatrical release of Hunger Games is currently approaching $400 million at North American box office and $650 million worldwide, a huge number, especially considering the low-budget the film was produced on.
With that kind of success, you can bet the studio wants to put out a great home version for the fans, and I don’t think this one will dissapoint. The home video release will have over three hours of new stuff to see.
“The motion picture event of the year is poised to become the home entertainment event of the year and, with a midnight launch and midnight retail events scheduled at stores around the country, we expect to replicate the same level of consumer excitement generated by the film’s theatrical debut,” said Lionsgate exec Ron Schwartz.
“This is far and away the biggest home entertainment launch in Lionsgate’s history and, true to a theatrical marketing campaign that incorporated an unprecedented reliance on digital and traditional media alike, our home entertainment launch will involve a similarly innovative and integrated digital and packaged media rollout that we will unveil in the weeks ahead.”
Essentially, this is marketing speak for “This is the coolest thing we’ve ever done, and we know it, so we’re going to make sure we do it big.” The film has been huge for Lionsgate, whom hardly anyone was keeping track of only a few years ago, when their biggest releases were a run of terrible Tyler Perry films, which are aparently not yet at an end. The studio is also responsible for the better than expected Conan movie which came out last year, and the more recent sci-fi horror Cabin in the Woods, which didn’t see a huge box office rack up, but did generate positive reception and buzz.
The following list of features will be on both the Blu-ray and DVD home video versions of The Hunger Games:
- “The World is Watching: Making of The Hunger Games” – an eight-part documentary covering the “making of” the film in all aspects from the pre-production process all the way through the theatrical release and fan reactions
- “Game Maker: Suzanne Collins and The Hunger Games Phenomenon” featurette
- “Letters from the Rose Garden” featurette – insights from Donald Sutherland on the development of his role as President Snow
- “Controlling the Games” featurette – stories and concepts behind creating the control center
- “A Conversation with Gary Ross and Elvis Mitchell”
- Propaganda Film (in its entirety)
- Marketing Archive
- “Preparing for The Games: A Director’s Process” (Blu-ray Exclusive)
There is also this trailer for the special features, something I would like to see more films do in the future:
The Hunger Games arrives on DVD and Blu-ray on August 18th, 2012. The film is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.
