A new collection of all 22 James Bond films has been announced for Blu-ray release, marking the 50th anniversary of the franchise and the first time all films have been made available on the format.
For such a hugely popular franchise, James Bond has never been very well treated on Blu-ray. While Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace received timely releases, the back catalog has never been issued in its entirety. Except, that is, until now, as MGM and 20th Century Fox has announced Bond 50, a box set containing all 22 films, that’s ready for pre-order today.
Unveiled during a Director’s Panel discussion held at Panasonic’s stand at CES 2012, the Bond 50 Blu-ray box set commemorates not only Dr. No’s golden anniversary, but also the impending release of Skyfall, the newest film featuring James Bond.
This will be the first time that all 22 James Bond films will be available on Blu-ray, and the presentation is suitably impressive. You can see the packaging above, which looks superb in black and gold, with iconic images of all six actors who’ve played Bond over the years.
The completist may bemoan the lack of the 1967 film Casino Royale with David Niven, and Sean Connery’s Never Say Never Again from 1983 though.
In addition to the films themselves, there will be at least 130 hours of bonus content, along with some new exclusive features too. Exactly what these are has yet to be confirmed, but you can bet there will be something on Skyfall in there somewhere.
Of course, such a lavish box set containing 22 movies is never going to be cheap, and sure enough Amazon’s pre-order page reveals it to cost $199 in the US. However, Amazon UK has priced the set at £89.99, which is considerably less than its US counterpart. They’ve also attached an October 1 release date to it.
With Skyfall set for a November 9 release, this fits in very nicely.
