Cult Favorite Little Monsters Getting a Steelbook Blu-ray Release in March

Lionsgate, who have had big success in the home entertainment market by releasing some of their best-loved catalog titles steelbook exclusives from Best Buy, have announced that the ’80s cult classic Little Monsters, which stars Howie Mandel and Fred Savage, is getting the same treatment. The one big twist, motivated by changes in the market, is that Little Monsters will now send its steelbook to Walmart instead. Best Buy announced last year that they would stop carrying physical media, with a few narrow exceptions. If you go to most of the company’s retail stores now, you can find a handful of vinyl records and some video games, but movies are probably already gone.

UPDATE (Jan. 11, 10:30 a.m. ET): The steelbook release is for a standard Blu-ray, NOT a 4K as originally reported. The press release indicated that the release was 4K, but since that didn’t match the Walmart listing, we reached out and learned that it was originally listed as 4K in error.

For years, Walmart has been the biggest brick-and-mortar seller of DVD and Blu-ray, which likely makes this move a de facto upgrade for Lionsgate. When rumors started to swirl in 2021 or so that Warner Bros. wanted to stop making disc releases of their movies, we asked a WB insider, who laughed it off, pointing out how much money they still make from Walmart in particular.

The steelbook version of Little Monsters is available to pre-order here at Walmart now. 

Little Monsters is one of those movies that did extremely well on the home video markets when it came out, but never got much love from critics or scholars. The advent of disc-based home media gives fans a chance to take a deep dive into the movie, with both new and vintage behind-the-scenes content included on the new release.

Here’s a rundown of the bonus features available in the steelbook edition of Little Monsters:

• Audio Commentary with Jarret Gahan, Editor-In-Chief of cultofmonster.com
• Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with Composer David Newman
• “Call Him Maurice” — An Interview with Actor Howie Mandel
• “Beneath The Bed” — An Interview with Producer Andrew Licht
• “Monsters Big & Small” — An Interview with Special Makeup Effects Creator Robert Short
• Vintage Interviews with Actors Fred Savage, Ben Savage, Special Makeup Effects Creator Robert Short, and Director Richard Alan Greenberg
• Behind-The-Scenes Footage
• Vintage Footage: “Making Maurice” — Howie Mandel’s Makeup Transformation
• Vintage EPK & VHS Promo
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery

…and here’s the film’s official synopsis, per Lionsgate:

Little Monsters is the story of Brian, a sixth grader who’s recently moved to a new town and made friends with Maurice — the monster who lives under Brian’s bed! Maurice introduces Brian to the world of monsters, where junk food rules, adults aren’t allowed, and the fun and games never end. But when Brian’s brother is kidnapped, it’s time for Brian to get serious and fight the monsters on their turf in this zany cult favorite.