Full Metal Jackets: Revenge of the Reel Heroes SteelBooks

Last year, Universal issued a batch of Blu-ray catalog titles in a line of comic book-styled SteelBook cases called the “Reel Heroes.” Many of them were quite ugly and had nothing to do with either comic books or heroes. I was not a fan. Nonetheless, they must have sold well, because the studio will release a new wave on May 6th.

For as much as I complained about last year’s cases, I must admit that I grudgingly purchased ‘Hellboy II’ (which at least fits the comic book theme), ‘Serenity’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’, because they were cheap, because they were the least objectionable art designs, and because I really wanted SteelBook copies of those movies to fill out my collection. That’s the curse of being a collector.

Among the new wave, I suppose that ‘The Blues Brothers’, ‘The Fast and the Furious’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ aren’t so bad. Even so, none inspires me to want to buy them. ‘Jurassic Park’ appears to only include the 2D version of the movie, not the recent 3D conversion. ‘Fast and the Furious’ (a movie I wouldn’t be inclined to own anyway) previously had a superior SteelBook edition.

The new ‘Bourne’ and ‘Wanted’ SteelBooks are quite hideous, if you ask me.

‘The Blues Brothers’

Available at: Amazon
Release date: May 6, 2014
Price: $14.99

‘The Bourne Identity’

Available at: Amazon
Release date: May 6, 2014
Price: $14.99

‘The Bourne Supremacy’

Available at: Amazon
Release date: May 6, 2014
Price: $14.99

‘The Bourne Ultimatum’

Available at: Amazon
Release date: May 6, 2014
Price: $14.99

‘The Fast and the Furious’

Available at: Amazon
Release date: May 6, 2014
Price: $14.99

‘Jurassic Park’

Available at: Amazon
Release date: May 6, 2014
Price: $14.99

‘King Kong’ [2005]

Available at: Amazon
Release date: May 6, 2014
Price: $14.99

‘Wanted’

Available at: Amazon
Release date: May 6, 2014
Price: $14.99

8 comments

  1. Chris B

    Yeaaaahhhh I’m really not a an of this artwork, they captured Jeremy Renner’s likeness pretty well but that looks nothing like Matt Damon. Overall I just find the theme really unattractive. It kind of makes sense from a marketing standpoint to have a similar motif for so many different cases, they’re probably joping to tap into the OCD completist aspect of some people’s personalities who’ll feel compelled to “collect ’em all” so to speak. Unless, that person finds them really ugly…such as myself.

    • EM

      At first I thought this was a comment on the new site look. I’m still working on getting inured to it and am thus reserving judgement. One note, though: For some reason, the “Recent Comments” listed on the main Bonus View page all show today’s date, even though full comments on dedicated entry pages (including the comment I’m replying to) may display earlier dates.

      • EM

        Hm…I just noticed that on this page, the “Recent Comments” all show yesterday’s date, even the comment I just posted.

  2. Josh you neglected to mention the reason that some may get these over trying for way more expensive Region B UK versions of these movies. They all come with an Ultra Violet code and can be added to iTunes as well. Since you got me hooked on these steel books (shakes fist) I had started with the easier to get first wave of these blue rays, at least for some of them.

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