Gung Ho: 1986 Ron Howard comedy starring Michael Keaton is set to be released on Bluray with a 4K restoration from Kino

A relatively obscure comedy from the 80s that came from Ron Howard and a pre-Batman Michael Keaton will be getting a special Blu-ray release.

One of the films that Michael Keaton had done before donning the cape and cowl in Tim Burton’s Batman is the 1986 cultural merging comedy Gung Ho. The movie came from Ron Howard after making a splash with….well, Splash — a Tom Hanks/Daryll Hannah comedy from 1983. Then, Howard went on to direct the hit film Cocoon with Steve Guttenberg in 1985. Cocoon is also a film that we’ve headlined in our column about hard-to-find movies. However, in a strong step for this Ron Howard film, the video label Kino has announced the release of a 4K restoration on Bluray for Gung Ho.

The movie would open at number one at the box office in March of 1986 with a $7 million opening and finish its run with $36 million. Interestingly, a TV series based on the film would actually premiere later that year in December of 1986. That version would star Scott Bakula in the Michael Keaton role and feature Ron’s brother, Clint Howard, in a different part than he had in the film. The show lasted one season and ended in 1987. The movie did play on cable here and there, but the comedy would somewhat fade into obscurity. The movie also starred names like Sixteen Candles’ Gedde Watanabe, George Wendt, Mimi Rogers, and John Turturro.

The synopsis from Blu-ray.com reads,
“When a western Pennsylvania auto plant is acquired by a Japanese company, brokering auto worker Hunt Stevenson (Michael Keaton) faces the tricky challenge of mediating the assimilation of two clashing corporate cultures. At one end is the Japanese plant manager (Gedde Watanabe) and the sycophant (Sab Shimono) who is angling for his position. At the other, a number of disgruntled long-time union members (George Wendt, John Turturro) struggle with the new exigencies of Japanese quality control. NEW 4K RESTORATION BY PARAMOUNT.“

The specs include:
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
TBA
Subtitles
English SDH
Discs
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD-50)
Playback
2K Blu-ray: Region A

The Blu-ray is set to hit the market later this year.

About the Author

E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.