In the fall, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will bring Annie to Blu-ray. Director John Huston (The African Queen) helms this screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, which focuses on a young orphan girl (Aileen Quinn, Multiple Sarcasms) searching for her long-lost parents.
From Sony's official synopsis:
"The charismatic little orphaned Annie's luck changes for the better when billionaire Oliver Warbucks (Albert Finney, Erin Brockovich) arrives at the orphanage looking to take one of the children for a short time. Annie soon charms the billionaire with her lively, warm nature, and together they set out to search for Annie's parents. With the mean head of the orphanage, Miss Hannigan (Carol Burnett, The Secret World of Arrietty) attempting to hinder their plan, Annie's search will prove to be quite a heartwarming journey."
Sony's 30th Anniversary Edition is a Blu-ray/UltraViolet Digital Copy combo pack that presents the film in its 2.39:1 original aspect ratio with a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track.
The disc also contains the following supplements:
My Hollywood Adventure with Aileen Quinn behind-the-scenes featurette
Musical performance of "It's the Hard-Knock Life" by Play
I'm so tempted to buy this!! So many good memories of this movie! I remember my parents taking me to see this in theatres back in '82 when I was 8 years old; we wound up going half a dozen times over the course of the next six to nine months. This was at the time when VCRs cost a lot and we couldn't afford one so going to the movies was really special. We used to go see movies we liked over and over again. Ah! the memories
I liked this film as a little kid too. I saw it in the theater and on VHS. Then I watched it about a year ago and discovered how awful the film really is. Aileen Quinn, who plays Annie, actually received a Razzie nomination. It's a hard knock life for the viewer.
This movie has had such a horrible history on home video--dvd full-framed transfers, laserdisc widescreen version that was framed incorrectly--that it is about time Sony (hopefully) will get this right.
And I agree, the Rob Marshall TV movie IS much better...
Wow! To each his own, I guess. I thought the 1999 version was pretty crappy. It was rewritten to be politically correct. Kathy Bates was seriously miscast, the guy playing Warbucks (he was in Titanic with Bates) couldn't hold a candle to Albert Finney in that role and I sorely missed Aileen Quinn as Annie. Sure, my appreciation of the 1982 film might be a bit tainted by nostalgia but I saw it again five or six years ago and I still got a kick out of it
@repete - Huston is still one of the examples held up for why a flop can be caused by Getting the Wrong Director--
Nobody knows why Huston got the job (if you could give the Sierra Madre director any movie, it WOULDN'T be Annie), except that maybe studios thought he was one of the few 40's directors who could do period, and Huston was taking more mainstream paycheck jobs in the 80's to pay for his literary indie movies.
He's still at sea, though--The cast was better, but the Disney TV-movie had a much better grasp of the stage musical.
Already pre-ordered at this price! Sony (Image) did an amazing job on "the TOY" (same vintage) and I got that on the cheap too! (I was completely taken by surprise that Richard Donner had directed that)! "ANNIE" with special features is an amazing bargain--this could have been snapped up by Twilight Time, cost $30-$35 and perhaps the only difference is that it would contain the soundtrack on an isolated track.
@TheMan - Ray Stark doesn't think so: It's considered to be the movie that killed his career, and dealt a twenty-year death blow to movie musicals in 1982. Let's not get TOO nostalgic, here.
(Annie was -the- flop in the public's mind, that year--If you'd told someone in '82, "Aw c'mon, Annie wasn't a flop!", they'd look at you as if you'd gone insane. Or at least the way WE'd look today if someone from the future came back and said "C'mon, John Carter was a good movie, it didn't flop in theaters!"
Strange; everyone we knew at the time absolutely loved it. Also, if you look at lists of the highest grossing movies of the year, it did finish in the tenth spot. Maybe it just cost a fortune to make then and did not recoup its budget? Anyhow, that movie will always be a classic to me and I have very fond memories of it. It's like Star Wars, Empire, Rocky III, E.T. and all the Bond movies from the '80s. Back then it was really special to go see a movie in theatres because movies at home weren't as accessible (in my case).
One thing the TV-movie has that is really nice is a musical appearance by Andrea McArdle, the original Broadway Annie, in the Broadway musical section of "NYC". She is the "star" of that musical within a musical, the woman with the suitcase.
