Credit: Marvel StudiosDisney is giving Deadpool & Wolverine a huge new update for its upcoming release.
There’s no denying that The Walt Disney Company has had a rough couple of years. Although the Mouse House is still one of the most dominant media companies on the planet, its stranglehold on pop culture has been weakening since about 2019, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe closed out the Infinity Saga with Avengers: Endgame.
Since then, Disney (and its subsidiaries like Marvel Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, and Lucasfilm) have all suffered setbacks. Wish (2023) was not the triumphant centennial celebration that Disney Animation was looking for.
The Marvels (2023) grossed the lowest amount of any MCU film to date, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) left the Mouse nearly $150 million in the red.
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Bob Iger and Kevin Feige must have breathed a deep sigh of relief, therefore, when Deadpool & Wolverine, the third movie to star Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson and the 10,000th to star Hugh Jackman as Logan, was a huge box office success.
The film, which was teased to bring the X-Men into the proper MCU and sort of, kind of did so, was preceded by a long and pervasive marketing plan, which resulted in Disney managing to successfully mine deep veins of fan nostalgia for the Fox franchise of superhero films like the X-Men, Blade, Daredevil/Elektra, and Fantastic Four.
No surprise, then, that Disney is going all out for the upcoming streaming and physical media release of Deadpool & Wolverine. In fact, the Mouse has decided to use the Shawn Levy film as the starting point of a new technological update for all of its upcoming releases.
Forbes reports that the 4K Blu-ray release of Deadpool & Wolverine will be mastered in Dolby Vision, the industry’s high standard for high dynamic range video. The movie will be the first to be released in that format for the company since 2018 and, reportedly, Disney will continue to release new 4K Blu-rays in Dolby Vision for the foreseeable future.
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Forbes says:
“Dolby Vision adds extra scene by scene image data to HDR video streams, typically helping compatible displays deliver more dynamic, balanced and more accurate HDR pictures than they can achieve by applying their own ‘tone mapping’ systems to relatively basic HDR10 feeds. So Disney not including Dolby Vision masters on any of its 4K Blu-ray releases—aside from titles overseen by James Cameron—since 2018’s “The Last Jedi” has long been a source of frustration to AV fans who, not unreasonably, want the premium home entertainment format to deliver the very best AV experience.”
It makes a great deal of sense that Disney is looking to package as prestigious of physical media release as possible for one of its biggest hits in years, especially as it is rumored that the company wants to campaign either Hugh Jackman or Ryan Reynolds (or both) for the upcoming awards season.
As long as people actually line up to buy the 4K Blu-ray, Disney will almost certainly start releasing more visually high-quality discs for the foreseeable future.
Deadpool & Wolverine will be available for home streaming on October 1 and on physical media on October 22.