Best Blu-ray Buys: Paramount and Universal in August

Next month Universal Pictures Video will cut the price of select back-catalogue Blu-ray movies to under $15.

The August 4-September 15 promotion will include 12 Monkeys, Shaun of the Dead, Cliffhanger, Twister, Children of Men, The Hulk, The Unborn, Untraceable, Land of the Dead, 8 Mile, Doom, Basic Instinct and Raw Deal.

Over the same period, Universal will market for under $20: the first three Fast & the Furious movies, The Bourne Identity and Supremacy, the Step Up movies, The Land of the Lost, The Invention of Lying, Funny People, Universal Soldier, Inside Man, Scorpion King, Frost/Nixon, Miami Vice, Chronicles of Riddick and Pitch Black.

Two of Universal’s most recent Blu-ray releases, It’s Complicated and The Wolfman, will be able to be snapped up for under $25 during the same promotion, along with Gladiator, Inglourious Basterds, Public Enemies, The Bourne Ultimatum, Fast & Furious, Death Race, Wanted, The Mummy: The Tomb of the Emperor’s Dragon, Hellboy 2 and Terminator 2: Skynet Edition.

All four Fast & Furious movies will be available in a box set, as will The Mummy, Bourne and Rambo trilogies, for $50-$75.

New to Blu-ray, for under $25, will be Total Recall, Dante’s Peak and Carlito’s Way.

Also being discounted at the same time will be a Paramount Pictures back catalogue slate. It will include for under $30, the Mission: Impossible movies, No Country for Old Men, Tomb Raider, Transformers, Tropic Thunder and The Untouchables; and for under $40, The Bank Job, Eagle Eye, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Top Gun, Iron Man and Watchmen.

The Godfather trilogy also will be repriced for an offer you can’t refuse: $99.