Blu-ray Release: Rollerball (1975)

Blu-ray Release Date: May 13, 2014
Price: Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Twilight Time


The 1975 sci-fi-tinged action-sports film Rollerball, one of the Seventies great dystopian future-shock flicks, finally makes its Blu-ray debut courtesy of Twilight Time.

Rollerball movie scene

In the future, there will be no war. But there will be Rollerball.

Rollerball posits a future—in this case a not-so-far-away 2018—in which war has been replaced by the titular game, a gladiatorial spectacle of violence that helps keep the global populace entertained and anesthetized. Emerging from this hard-hitting “sport” is a  champion, Jonathan E (James Caan, Thief), whose individual expertise defeats the worldwide corporate leadership’s design: to emphasize the futility of individual effort. Corporate big-wigs (icily incarnated by The Fog‘s John Houseman) need Jonathan to retire, but Jonathan begins to have his own dangerous ideas.

Directed by Norman Jewison (Fiddler on the Roof) and written by William Harrison, the film also stars Moses Gunn (WUSA), John Beck (Sleeper) and Maud Adams (Octopussy).

Bonus features on the Twilight Time Blu-ray include the following:

-Isolated Score Track
-Audio Commentary with Director Norman Jewison
-Audio Commentary with Writer William Harrison
-From Rome to Rollerball: The Full Circle
-Return to the Arena: The Making of Rollerball
-TV Spots
-Trailers
-MGM 90th Anniversary Trailer

As Twilight Time prints up only 3,000 copies of each title, the time to pre-order your Blu-ray discs directly from distributor Screen Archives is NOW!

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.