Due on Blu: Universal’s Mega-April Slate

Next month’s release of Megamind on Blu-ray heralds a mega-HD slate for Universal Pictures NZ in April.

The distributor of its own studio product and Paramount Pictures will premiere 12 titles on Blu-ray and run April 6-May 18 price promotions for more than 50 previous Blu-ray releases.

The month’s biggest launches will be the animated Megamind and the latest in the Meet the Parents franchise, Little Fockers.

The former will come out on April 13 and the latter on April 27, which is also when Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers will bow on Blu-ray, along with American Beauty and the original True Grit.

These back-catalogue newcomers will sell for about $35 each whereas five other library titles being released for the first time in HD will be bargain buys: About a Boy, Ray and Out of Sight will sell for $15 each, Peter Pan and Sleepers for about $20 each.

Universal’s other major new release for the month will be Devil, on April 6.

It will be supported by $15 promotions of Dawn of the Dead, The Fog, The Return, The Skeleton Key, The Strangers, The Unborn, Untraceable and Van Helsing.

Also available for this price will be: Black Lightning, Charlie Wilson’s War, Hot Fuzz, The Jackal, Leatherheads, Meet Joe Black, Pitch Black, Shaun of the Dead, Smokin’ Aces, Suck and We Own the Night.

A raft of family titles will be discounted to about $20 for the school holidays, including: Coraline, The Grinch, Hotel for Dogs, Land of the Lost, Monsters vs Aliens, Nanny McPhee, Spiderwick Chronicles, Stardust, Tale of Despereaux, and Mr Bean’s Holiday and Ultimate Disaster Movie.

Also being pitched at this price point will be A Serious Man, Backdraft, Bee Movie, Bruno, Casino, Charlie St Cloud, Funny People, Kung Fu Panda, The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and the Madagascar and Step Up movies.

Another animated hit, How to Train Your Dragon, will sell for $25 while on sale for Mother’s Day will be Les Miserables’ 25^th Anniversary Concert.

The distributor will give 3D a special push with separate releases of Ocean Wonderland, Dolphins and Whales: Tribes of the Ocean and Sharks, which previously were packaged as a single unit, and price reductions on Coraline 3D, Despicable Me 3D and Step Up 3D.