Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced 'The Natural' for release on Blu-ray on April 6. This baseball movie, starring Robert Redford, was initially slated to come out three years ago, simultaneously with the director's cut DVD, but was pulled from the schedule. The Blu-ray will include the 138-minute theatrical cut of the movie.
Special features include:
When Lightning Strikes: Creating the Natural:
Part 1
Part 2, The Line-Up: Assembling the Moviemaking Team
Part 3, Let's Play Ball: Filming the Show
For the Love of the movie... and the Game
A Natural Gunned Down: The Stalking of Eddie Waitkus
Knights in Shining Armor: The Mythology of "The Natural"
Nice to see this released along with when the 2010 baseball season gets underway. Thats just a day or two after Opening Day! Looking forward to picking this one up. Hopefully it'll be better than the Field of Dreams transfer Universal put out last year.
Nice. I love watching baseball movies right around the time of baseball's opening day. Will watch this along with Field of Dreams this year! Maybe we will see announcements for A League of Their Own, Bull Durham, or Eight Men Out before season's end!
Producers made Barry Levinson change the ending to make it more upbeat. I hope the original ending, taken from the book; which was shot is part of a deleted scenes reel. I would love to know how Robert Redford handled a far more bitter sweet and some say tragic ending to a wonderful story.
I have ALWAYS wanted to see this but have been hanging on for Blu-ray. Day one purchase. I wish I was older. I would have seen Redford on the big screen more often. I went to 'Lions for Lambs' (sucked) and 'Spy Game'.
This is my favorite baseball movie so I'm happy to see it come out on Blu-ray. I read the book and while I'm not always an advocate for happy endings, I prefer the movie's happy ending to the book's not-so-happy ending. The movie is a heroic movie from front to back. Tacking on the anti-hero ending would be incongruous.
I guess Blu-rays don't have enough storage for multiple cuts of films since they continue to not produce them. I guess Close Encounters was just a short film since that had 3 different versions.
Day 1 buy!!! Baseball movies are totally awesome and fun to watch over and over and now is the time to announce all those back in the day "YANKEES"!! baseball movies such as 61!!
I love this baseball movie, a must buy! Redford does a good turn in this one as Roy Hobbs, but it also features a great supporting cast - Robert Duvall, Robert Prosky, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Darren McGavin and Wilford Brimley in his career best supporting role as Pop "I shoulda been a farmer..." Fisher, the beleaguered manager of the Knights.
Looking forward to picking this one up. Hopefully it'll be better than the Field of Dreams transfer Universal put out last year. 
