Why Doesn’t Zach Cregger’s BARBARIAN Have A Blu-Ray Release?
In the age of streaming, in many ways, physical media has never been more important. We’re at the mercy of streamers and finding what you want to watch can be like following a bouncing ball, not to mention costly. There's also a film preservation element to owning something on 4K, Blu-ray or DVD. That’s why it’s always frustrating when a beloved movie isn’t available on Blu-ray. Such is the case with Zach Cregger’s Barbarian. But why is that the case?
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Cregger was recently a guest on The Big Picture podcast to promote his new movie Weapons, which crushed it at the box office over the weekend. During the conversation, they touched on the fact that Barbarian is not available physically, even though it did get a theatrical release and is currently streaming on Hulu. Cregger is right there with horror fans on this one and wants the movie on shelves. Unfortunately, his pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
“I have banged the drum, made phone calls, and tried my best to get some sort of physical media. I’m not making headway, and it kind of bums me out,” Cregger said. The filmmaker went on to explain that he personally enjoys bonus features that often come on physical releases of a movie, lamenting the fact that no such thing exists for Barbarian.
“I love watching the making-of, sometimes as much as watching the movie. Selfishly, I want people to watch me boss other people around and look cool. We don’t have any footage like that of Barbarian, because nobody cared enough. But we did do special features…they’re available on the iTunes purchase.”
Barbarian was released by Disney’s 20th Century Studios in fall 2022 and it became an unexpected hit, taking in $45 million against a mere $4.5 million budget. Sadly, this was at a time when Disney was caring less and less about physical media, with the studio passing off its physical media business to Sony in 2024. More than likely, this is a title that just fell through the cracks and it hasn’t been anyone’s priority to dig through those cracks, so to speak.
Streaming is the dominant force in modern media, there’s no two ways about it. Best Buy no longer sells Blu-ray or DVDs of any kind. More and more movies aren’t getting physical releases. That said, there’s still a robust collecting community out there, with great Blu-ray and 4K releases hitting shelves all the time. Companies like Arrow Video and Shout! Factory do outstanding work with more obscure movies all the time.
One imagines it’s only a matter of time before one of these boutique distributors gets around to talking to Cregger and Disney (or perhaps Sony) about finally making this a reality. Here’s hoping.
Weapons is in theaters now. For more, find out why Zach Cregger has ruled out a sequel to Barbarian.
