A Hard Day's Night (film) - Release History

Release History

• 1964: A Hard Day's Night was released by United Artists;
• 1979: Rights to the film were transferred to its producer, Walter Shenson;
• 1982: Shenson granted rights to Universal Pictures for a cinematic reissue. Universal added a prologue consisting of a montage of photographic stills from the film shoot edited to a soundtrack of the song "I'll Cry Instead", a recording once considered for the film and included on the US soundtrack album but eventually not used;
• 1984:, MPI Home Video, under license from Shenson, first released A Hard Day's Night on home video in the VHS, Betamax, CED Videodisc, and Laserdisc formats, which all included the prologue.
  • The movie was also released by Criterion in both a single-disc CLV and a DualDisc CAV Laserdisc format. The additional features section on the CAV edition include the original theatrical trailer, an interview with Richard Lester, and his The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film.
• 1993: Voyager Company produced a CD-ROM for Mac and PC platforms with video in QuickTime 1 format, containing most of Criterion's elements, including the original script.
• 1997: MPI Home Video released the first DVD edition. It contains the 1982 prologue and trailer, newsreels, an interview with Richard Lester, and The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film.
• 2000: Miramax Films reissued the film in theatres in the United States and then as a collector's edition DVD two years later, as well as its final issue in the VHS format. The film had been transferred from the restored 35 mm negative and presented in 1.66:1 Widescreen. The prologue that Universal added in 1982 is absent on the Miramax releases.
  • In addition to the original film, the DVD edition contained a bonus disc with over 7 hours of additional material including interviews with cast and crew members and Beatles associates. The DVD was produced by Beatles historian and producer Martin Lewis, a longtime friend of Walter Shenson.
• 2009: The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in Canada; however, the disc is region free and will play in any Blu-ray machine. It contains most of the 2000 DVD bonus features.
• 2010: Miramax, the current co-owner of the film (with The Weinstein Company), is sold by Disney to Filmyard Holdings, LLC, and the home video sub-license is transferred to Lionsgate, who continue to issue the DVD today, although no U.S. Blu-ray release date has been announced.
• 2011: A new Blu-ray edition was released in Mexico, this version has Spanish subtitles.