Scarface to Blow You Away on Blu-ray

Al Pacino as Scarface

Universal Pictures NZ will release the Al Pacino gangster classic, Scarface, on Blu-ray in September, complete with 7.1 audio.

It will include a new documentary that explores how director Brian De Palma’s movie (which Oliver Stone scripted) was plagued by controversy leading up to its release and went on to become a pop culture phenomenon.

Also new will be two U-Control features: a picture-in-picture track that includes interview footage of De Palma, Pacino, Stone and others as well as a scene comparison between the 1983 Scarface and Howard Hawks’ original film; and a scoreboard that tracks how many times the “F” word is used and how many bullets are fired.

Other extras will be ported over from previous DVD releases, including:

• Deleted scenes;
• The World of Tony Montana — an insight into what it likes to be a real-life drug lord;
• The Rebirth — De Palma, producer Martin Bregman, Pacino and  Stone revisit the history of Scarface, from the inspiration of the original Howard Hawks classic to the evolution of the script;
• The Acting — the filmmakers, Pacino and co-star Steven Bauer discuss casting and how De Palma worked with his actors to get unforgettable performances;
• The Creating — the definitive account of the making of the film, from how the production was forced to leave its initial location in Florida to how the chainsaw scene was filmed to insights into the production design, the photography and the struggle to get the film an “R” rating in the US;
• Scarface: The TV Version — a revealing and hilarious montage of film clips comparing the theatrical version to the network television version of Scarface; and,
• The Making of Scarface: The Video Game.

There also will be BD-Live features and Universal’s pocket BLU app that uses iPhone, iPod Touch, Smartphone, Android, PC and Mac devices to work with a network-connected Blu-ray player.

It enables a virtual keyboard and remote control, a video timeline to instantly access any point in the movie, and bonus content that can be saved to mobile devices or streamed from a Wi-Fi network.