Martin Scorsese Masterpiece May Only Exist Digitally, No Physical Release Planned

In the tweet discussing the fate of Killers of the Flower Moon, the user said of the Martin Scorsese film “I haven’t seen it announced on here, but we got word through one of our library media fulfillment companies:  They have, at the very least, indefinitely postponed (very likely canceled) the physical media release of “Killers of the Flower Moon […] Patron holds are being canceled, temp MARC listings are pulled from library catalog, please inform patrons if they ask.”

While Killers of the Flower Moon is not the first movie to go this route, some movie fans might have hoped somebody who loves film as much as Martin Scorsese might have fought for the movie to be released physically.

However, even if he did, the number of retailers who would even carry the movie at this point is dwindling. This year retailers like Best Buy have already largely phased out their physical media sections, with digital and streaming largely making movies on discs become obsolete.

Many movie fans have serious concerns about this and are advocating vehemently for the preservation of movies via physical means. The fear is that if new movies become exclusively digital, then if no streaming platform chooses to carry that movie, it can leave people with no means to watch the movie.

While this is unlikely to be a concern for something as recent as Killers of the Flower Moon or any other new Martin Scorsese movies, it has already happened with numerous other older movies. As time passes and popularity wanes on these new movies, will they continue to have a home?

This is a significant departure, with Killers of the Flower Moon being the first Martin Scorsese movie to receive no physical release.

His last movie, 2019’s The Irishman, got a release on Criterion. It does not seem like that will be the case for Scorsese’s latest movie. Killers of the Flower Moon was produced in part by Apple Studios, and they elect not to release their movies physically.

There is a Region 2 version of the movie available, but you would have to either buy that in Europe or purchase a copy online and play it on a compatible device.

For what consolation it is, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is not the first major movie to shun the world of physical releases. There has already been past frustration over Zach Cregger’s horror movie Barbarian also going this route. Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers did so as well.

Given that those films were released years ago and still have not received physical releases, there appears to be no interest in doing so.

This would indicate a slim chance of a reversal of this decision for even a limited run on physical releases for collectors in the future. It appears the shift to digital only is moving along full steam ahead.

Source: World of Reel