Why So Blu?

Brandon’s Blu-ray Wishlist – September 5, 2014

And after a short hiatus, the Wishlist is back!  Today is a special one, too as its sort of a cross-over with my Naptown Nerd blog.  The film I’m talking about today is also the same one I’ve already written about over there today as well.  Currently, I’m doing a retrospective on the filmography of director David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, Social Network).  We’ve now landed on the one sole film of his that is not out on Blu-ray in any territory.  To check out my David Fincher Retrospective series on Naptown Nerd CLICK HERE.  Also, if you’re interested, I have many other retrospective series cover film franchises and the like that you can find on the side bar.

Panic Room (2002)

The Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart “locked in a vault” while Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker and Dwight Yoakam try to break in thriller is not on Blu-ray at all.  Its surprising too as any time is a good time to release a David Fincher film.  He’s never really had a succession of back-to-back failures and most of his films over the last decade have made some money at the box office.  He’s one of Hollywood’s top directors and one that not only comes with some good commercial appeal, he also brings along an amount of artistic prestige.

On the surface, Panic Room might appear to be his most basic picture, but when you get to the technical side of things, you’ll see that taking an easy route is never an option for Fincher.  Through some crafty CGI and extravagant well thought out camera movements, this one sets itself above the rest.  And when the film isn’t exploring those avenues, its also got some good craft in making its suspense unique, including a slow motion “race to the panic room” sequence that has you bouncing in your seat hoping that Meg makes it back to the room before the burglars get to her.

Its not like the film doesn’t have a great cast to sell it on aside from the director either.  A young Kristen Stewart is in this movie for gosh sakes.  Jared Leto just recently won an Oscar for Dallas Buyer’s Club.  Forest Whitaker is also an Oscar winner and a familiar face to many people.  Let’s also not sell short the prestige that comes with Jodie Foster.  Cast alone, there is reason that this movie would likely be appealing to both fans, and maybe some people who’ve never heard of or seen the film.  I think Panic Room‘s cast is an even bigger sell now than when it was release in 2002.

Panic Room was available on DVD in two editions.  There was a bare bones Superbit release that included just the trailer and those always useful “Cast Bios”.  Superbit was supposed to be the next big thing in terms of video quality for DVDs (the highest resolution!), but I just popped mine to revisit this film and it looks like pretty crappy.  I won’t sell the sound short, it was pretty fantastic for a DVD.  There was also a 3-Disc version of the film that included two discs full of bonus features and commentaries.  So, whoever puts this out, its already got most of everything you’d want.  Although, to give us something “new”, it’d be very cool if they included some of the Nicole Kidman scenes that were shot just to gives us a “look and feel” of the original intent of the Meg character.  I don’t think that any of her stuff appeared on that 3-disc release.

We really should get Panic Room on Blu-ray.  It should’ve been one schedule for this month to coincide with Gone Girl.  The film was a money maker at the box office, raking in double that of its overstuffed budget (because of production issues/reshoots).  And worldwide the film almost made $200 million dollars.  It was David Fincher’s second biggest film domestically and globally (Just by a hair domestic, $4 million less than Seven)  in fact until The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (which didn’t make its budget backin terms of domestic dollars) many years later.  Sony currently holds the distribution rights to the film, I believe (under Columbia Pictures), but I think this movie would actually be more fitting of the Criterion Collection if they could get a sub license.  Please Sony, do it so us OCD collectors can complete our David Fincher Blu-rays!