Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has announced the first day-and-date Blu-ray Disc of 2008 will be Danny Boyle’s Sunshine on January 8. This is one of “approximately” 30 day-and-date titles the studios plans for next year, per comments made on Monday to journalists on the Fox lot by Steve Feldstein, SVP of Corporate and Marketing Communications for Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
Both the DVD and Blu-ray versions will include an audio commentary by director Danny Boyle; 13 deleted scenes with commentary by Danny Boyle; 22 Web Production Diaries; Dad’s Dead short film directed by Chris Shepherd; and the Mole Hills short film directed by Dan Arnold. Technical specs should fall in line with Fox’s tradition of 1080p video and DTS-HD Master Audio.
The official Sunshine press announcement does not touch upon the Blu-ray version other than to state the standard Fox SRP of $39.98. However, TheManRoom was fortunate to be in attendance at Fox Studios on Monday when the disc’s interactive capabilities were unveiled for the first time.
Sunshine will include true final profile picture-in-picture behind-the-scenes material during and unknown number of select scenes. Because the picture-in-picture window is a true separate second video feed from the main feature, the viewer will be able to turn on both audio streams, or select one or the other with a simple click of the remote.
Another intriguing use of BD-Java appearing on Sunshine is the interactive feature Journey Into Sound. Here the viewer can elect to watch the entire feature with a selection of 5 speakers on the lower portion of the screen: left, center, right, rear left, and rear right. At any time the viewer can choose to isolate any of the channels, a novelty sure to tickle the fancy of audio-philes interested in picking apart the sound mix.
Additional peeks at Sunshine’s menus reveal a theatrical trailer should also appear on the Blu-ray Disc, though this could change due to its absense in the DVD press release. We’ll be sure to pass along additional Sunshine material as it is made available, and hope to have a couple snapshots of the menus and picture-in-picture functionality from the Fox portion of the Blu-ray Disc Festival up before the week is out.
