Fresh from a successful cinema run that’s seen it become the second biggest earner of the Alien movie franchise (behind only 2012’s “Prometheus”), director Fede Alvarez’s “Alien: Romulus” is set to debut on 4K Blu-ray on December 3—complete with a solid set of extra features and benefiting from Disney’s recent decision to finally re-embrace Dolby Vision HDR on its physical media releases.
As explained in this separate article, aside from a few James Cameron titles Disney hasn’t included Dolby Vision masters on its 4K Blu-ray releases since 2018’s “The Last Jedi”. After striking a deal where Sony now manufactures Disney’s physical media, though, “Alien: Romulus” becomes the second Disney 4K BD release after October 22’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” to carry the premium HDR format.
Dolby Vision adds extra scene by scene image data to the image feed to help compatible TVs deliver usually more dynamic and accurate picture quality. Something that has the potential to be especially effective with a film that contains the sort of relatively extreme lighting environments “Alien: Romulus” does.
The film will also presented in its regular theatrical ratio of 2.39:1 on a 66GB disc that should just about be spacious enough to cope with the film’s 119-minute running time without too much compression.
As well as its 4K resolution and HDR charms, the 4K Blu-ray of “Alien: Romulus” will score an advantage over the HD Blu-ray by carrying a Dolby Atmos soundtrack rather than the HD disc’s 7.1 DTS-HDMA mix.
The bonus features provided in the package are headed up by a four part ‘making of’ documentary called “Return To Horror: Crafting Alien: Romulus”. The four parts are described as follows:
- The Director’s Vision – Discover how one of today’s greatest horror directors, Fede Alvarez, collaborated with master filmmaker Ridley Scott to craft a new, heart-pounding chapter in the Alien franchise.
- Creating the Story – Learn what inspired the story of “Alien: Romulus” and see the many easter eggs from previous Alien installments that you may have missed.
- Casting the Faces – Meet the stars of “Alien: Romulus” as they take us inside the hearts and minds of their characters. Explore the parallels between Rain and the iconic franchise heroine, Ripley, and learn how filmmakers brought back a face from the past.
- Constructing the World – Explore the massive, practical sets of Alien: Romulus that hearken back to the futuristic style established in the ’80s and get up close and personal with a hoard of practically built facehuggers, chestbursters, and xenomorphs.
A separate featurette, meanwhile, takes an in-depth look at “Alien: Romulus”’s climactic zero-gravity scene, with the filmmakers breaking down all the elements, from sets and performance to stunts, wirework and VFX, that make the moment so effective.
In “Alien: A Conversation”, meanwhile, Ridley Scott and Fede Alvarez discuss the Alien movie universe as the original film reaches its 45th anniversary, while last but by no means least on the list of bonus features is a series of Alternate and Extended Scenes.
“Alien: Romulus” will be available in standard and limited edition steelbook Blu-ray versions, as well as becoming available on digital streaming platforms a few weeks ahead of the physical media releases, on October 15.
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