Paramount Home Entertainment is debuting a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release of Frank Capra’s classic It’s a Wonderful Life starring James Stewart and Donna Reed on October 29th, 2019 after first being teased last fall.
Each It’s a Wonderful Life 4K UHD Combo Pack includes the film in black-and-white in 4K high definition, and a colorized version on the inclusive Blu-ray Disc.
A trio of all-new bonus features will be included on the 4K Disc:
- Restoring a Beloved Classic
- Secrets from the Vault
- It’s A Wonderful Wrap Party
Here’s Paramount’s description of the restoration process that helped bring It’s a Wonderful Life to 4K for the first time:
Paramount spent over a year painstakingly restoring this treasured film, using the original nitrate negative along with two fine grain masters made in the 1940s. Each element was carefully scanned using the very latest technology to both preserve the delicate negative and create the best possible digital image. Fortunately, 13 of the 14 reels of the original negative survived, but portions had begun to deteriorate so the best image was selected from one of the three original sources on a shot-by-shot basis. The result is a more vibrant and detail-rich picture that brings this classic to life like never before.
In addition to a 4K release, a separate two-Disc Blu-ray set will be released that includes the remastered version in black-and-white, the colorized version, and all three special features listed above.
