Playbill News: "Dreamgirls" DVD — with Feature-Length Documentary

"Dreamgirls" DVD — with Feature-Length Documentary — Due in Stores in May

By Andrew Gans
March 8, 2007

The Golden Globe Award-winning film "Dreamgirls" — based on the Broadway musical of the same name — will arrive on DVD in May.

Paramount Home Entertainment will release two versions of the film — a single DVD and a two-DVD Showstopper Edition — May 1. Both will be presented in widescreen with Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround sound with bonus material.

The single DVD will feature the movie as well as 12 extended and alternate scenes:

"Effie, Sing My Song" (never-before-seen performance by Jennifer Hudson)

"I'm Looking for Something"

"Goin' Down"

"Takin' the Long Way Home"

"Fake Your Way to the Top"

"Steppin' To The Bad Side"

"Heavy"

"I’m Somebody"

"I Am Changing"

"Perfect World"

"One Night Only"

Music Video "Listen" by Beyoncé Knowles

The two-DVD Showstopper Edition will include all of the material found on the single DVD as well as the following bonus features:

Building The Dream — Feature-length documentary in nine chapters: On Broadway; The Dream Is Alive; I'm Lookin' for Something; Feel So Real; You Better Move, Move; The Sound of Tomorrow; Gonna Take a Mean Ride: A Side; Gonna Take a Mean Ride: B Side; and One Night Only

Dream Logic: Film Editing

Dressing the Dreams: Costume Design

Center Stage: Theatrical Lighting

Auditions and Screen Tests (Beyoncé Knowles screen test, Anika Noni Rose audition, Fatima Robinson choreography audition)

Previsualization Sequences (The Talent Show, Fake Your Way to the Top, Cadillac Car, Steppin' to the Bad Side, I Want You Baby, Heavy and Hard to Say Goodbye)

Image Gallery with over 1,100 images (storyboards, costume designs, production designs and art department archive)

The single "Dreamgirls" DVD will have a suggested retail price of $19.99; the two-DVD set, $39.99.

Directed by Bill Condon, "Dreamgirls" stars Jennifer Hudson as Effie, Beyoncé Knowles as Deena Jones, Anika Noni Rose as Lorrell Robinson, Jamie Fox as Curtis Taylor Jr., Eddie Murphy as James "Thunder" Early and Danny Glover as Marty. Director Bill Condon also wrote the film's screenplay based on the late Tom Eyen's book. The film employs most of the original score by Eyen and Henry Krieger as well as four new tunes: "Love You I Do" (for Effie), "Listen" (for Deena), "Patience" (for James "Thunder" Early) and "Perfect World" (for Teddy Campbell, a child musical sensation rising alongside The Dreams).

The film won three Golden Globe Awards (for Best Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy and co-stars Murphy and Hudson) and two Academy Awards (for Hudson and for Sound Mixing).