CHARIOTS OF FIRE Team GB Olympics Video – On Blu-ray July 10

With a little more than a month until the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics, kids re-enacted the famous scene from Chariots of Fire on West Sands Beach in St Andrews, Scotland earlier today. On July 13th, audiences across the UK will have the opportunity to enjoy the Great British movie classic, CHARIOTS OF FIRE on the big screen as Twentieth Century Fox, in association with The Sun and BT and with the support of the BFI, release the internationally acclaimed, multi Oscar®-winning Olympic drama in a stunning digitally restored version.

Listen as past athletes from Great Britain talk about their Olympic moments.

Yesterday Variety reported on the Games of the XXX Olympiad.

Filmmaker Danny Boyle has unveiled details of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, which will see the Olympic Stadium transformed into an idealized version of the British countryside.

Boyle, artistic director for the curtain raiser, said the opening scene of the £27 million ($42 million) extravaganza will be called “Green and Pleasant” and would create “a picture of ourselves as a nation.” He said the three-hour show was inspired by Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” and would be about a land recovering from its industrial legacy.

An official part of the London 2012 Festival, CHARIOTS OF FIRE will help get this summer’s Olympic celebrations off to a flying start on July 10th, with the British Premiere for the film taking place simultaneously in London’s Leicester Square, at Edinburgh’s iconic Festival Theatre, and at selected locations across the country. The events will be attended by the film’s producer Lord Puttnam, Hugh Hudson, the director, members of the cast and a host of Britain’s greatest sportsmen and women.

Chariots of Fire tells the story of two very different men who compete as runners in the 1924 Paris Olympics: Eric Liddell is a devout Christian who believes that his athletic abilities are a gift from God, and that using that gift to its fullest extent – to win the gold medal – will be his way of repaying that gift.

Harold Abrahams is an English Jew, a student at Cambridge, who dreams of fame and of proving to his anti-Semitic fellow students, and to the world, that Jews are in no respect inferior.

Their motives are noble. Their commitment is total. Their integrity is unquestionable. They will both make personal sacrifices to achieve their goals. In the process, through all the obstacles and personal issues they conquer, they prove that striving for victory in their own terms is, perhaps, its own reward.

Based on a true story, CHARIOTS OF FIRE was the winner of four Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, in addition to receiving nominations for three more.

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CHARIOTS OF FIRE will be released on Blu-ray for the first time on July 10, 2012 from Warner Home Video (WHV). The title’s release will coincide with this year’s Summer Olympics in London which begins at the end of July.

The four-time Academy Award-winning film, named Best Picture in 1982, also won for Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Score, and received three additional nominations. Ben Cross (“Star Trek”) and Ian Charleson (“Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan Lord of the Apes”) head a stellar cast, which also features British luminaries Ian Holm (“Lord of the Rings” series), John Gielgud (“Gandhi,” “Arthur”) and Lindsay Anderson (“O Lucky Man”), in this powerful and emotional true story of British sprinters Harold Abrahams (Cross) and Eric Liddell (Charleson). Eric, a devout Scottish missionary runs because he knows it must please God, while Harold, the son of a newly wealthy Jew runs to prove his place in Cambridge society. Ian Holm was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor in his role as Abrahams’ coach.

CHARIOTS OF FIRE will be offered in WHV’s premium Blu-ray book packaging ($35.99 SRP) with close to an hour of special features, and a Blu-ray book with rare insights into the film’s production and cast, including trivia and in-depth photos. In addition, there is a CD sampler featuring some of the most beloved songs from the film.

Special features in CHARIOTS OF FIRE include:

• New Featurette: “Paris, 1924 – Birth of the Modern Olympic’s”

• New Featurette: “David Puttnam, A Cinematic Champion”

• New Featurette: “Hugh Hudson – Journey to the Gold”

• “Wings on their Heels: The Making of Chariots of Fire”

• “Chariots of Fire: A Reunion”

• “Sprint Around the Quad”

• “Famous Opening Shot”

• Commentary by Director Hugh Hudson

• Deleted Scenes

• Screen Tests

• CD Sampler

o “Titles”

o “Abraham’s Theme”

o “Eric’s Theme”

o “Jerusalem”

Special features are subject to change.