The Fugitive Gets 4K Remaster for 30th Anniversary

August 6th, 1993, saw the release of The Fugitive, director Andrew Davis' remake of the original 1963 TV series. The action thriller stars Harrison Ford and Oscar and Golden Globe winner Tommy Lee Jones, who engage in a cat-and-mouse game after Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford) is wrongfully accused of murdering his wife. As Kimble escapes the law in an attempt to find his wife's killer and clear his name, he's pursued by a team of U.S. marshals led by the relentless Deputy Samuel Gerard (Jones). And now, in time for The Fugitive's 30th anniversary, the chase is back on — newly restored in 4K ultra high-definition.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has announced the 4K remaster of The Fugitive will release November 21st. Pre-orders are live at Best Buy, which will offer an exclusive The Fugitive 4K steelbook.

Both editions feature Warner Bros. 100th-anniversary packaging and come with a single 4K UHD disc (no Blu-ray included) with a digital copy code, plus the following:

• NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
• HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
• DOLBY ATMOS AUDIO TRACK, plus original 5.1 track
• Introduction by Director Andrew Davis and Harrison Ford
• Audio Commentary by Andrew Davis and Tommy Lee Jones
• Derailed: Anatomy of a Train Wreck and On the Run with The Fugitive
• Theatrical Trailer
• Optional English SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles for the main feature

The Fugitive was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Cinematography, and Editing, winning Best Supporting Actor for Jones. The blockbuster grossed $369 million worldwide, making it the third highest-grossing film of 1993 behind only Jurassic Park and Mrs. Doubtfire.

According to Davis, the new 4K restoration will accompany a limited re-release of The Fugitive in select theaters this fall. Frank A. Montaño, the Oscar-nominated rerecording mixer on the original film, returned to spearhead the audio remixing in Dolby Atmos audio.

"When [Montaño] found out that Warners was going to restore it, he called me up and said, 'Andy, you've got to let me do this. I'm the one who knows how it should sound. I was there. I don't want anybody to screw this up,'" Davis told The A.V. Club in an interview for the film's 30th anniversary. "And he had a relationship with the people at Warner, at sound. It turns out Frankie now is the top mixer at Universal. They tore down a shooting stage and built a dubbing stage for him. He just remastered Jaws and Back To The Future. He got them to give him the masters [of The Fugitive]. I played a role in that, but I said, 'Let Frankie do it.' So, I went to listen. He'd cleaned it up. The first time I heard it, I go, "Frankie, something's wrong. It sounds so clear. You've got to put some more street noise in there because everything's so clear." I wasn't used to that, you know? And hearing the score in Atmos was amazing."

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging tapped veteran restoration colorist Jan Yarbrough — whose 4K restoration credits include The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Batman Begins, The Goonies, Grease, and The Matrix — to oversee the new 4K restoration and HDR presentation.

"[Yarbrough] basically re-scanned the negative in 4K, and I worked with him very closely. He just made it look beautiful and was able to make it so clean and crisp," Davis said. "He was able to do everything I wanted to do, which I couldn't do back then. In the old days, all you could do was make it brighter, darker, bluer, or redder."

The Fugitive 4K is available November 21st from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.