A Small Rant on Physical Media: 4K Releases.

There has been an annoying trend that I’ve noticed as of late. A trend that both confuses and irritates me. That trend is the fact that studios tend to inconsistently release 4K transfers of their films.

An example of this comes from a film such as Malignant, which saw a typical Blu-Ray release. Then about a year later came the news of a 4K release. Why didn’t it already have one?

It’s clear that a transfer was being worked upon, so why wasn’t it released at the same time as the Blu-Ray? By the time of the film’s home media release, 4K had become much more common and easier to produce than when the format first released. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t always clear.

However, most will say it comes down to money. There are an abundance of physical media collectors out there that will pay extra to have another copy of a movie in a different format. Perhaps the studios want to squeeze a bit more money out of the home media market, who knows.

With that being said, there’s another habit that studios have that irritates me even more; the limited edition before a standard release.

The example I share with you now is with the film Heavy Metal. On April 19th, 2023, the film saw a 4K release with a limited edition steel book. The edition also came with a Blu-Ray copy of the sequel Heavy Metal 2000. Unfortunately, the limited release was quickly sold out, and most fans were left with empty hands and shelves.