Only four short months after is last Studio Day in November, “Dave’s Video - The Laser Place” once again opened its doors to host another Studio Day last Saturday, giving the public the chance to talk to studio representatives about current affairs and upcoming titles. As expected after such a short time, there is only little new to report as many of the titles we had covered during the November Studio Day have yet to make their DVD debuts. The early timing of the event was for the most part due to a large group of members of the Home Theater Forum spending time in California, and Dave’s video wanted t omake sure to accomodate a great experience for the folks around Ron Epstein and Parker Clack - speaking about customer service, huh...

Nonetheless, a few interesting tidbits came up during this exciting event, although I would like to remind all our readers that most of the information found here is tentative and subject to change, especially if the outlook is going some time in the future and does not relate to immediate releases.

20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment

20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment was there and producer Van Ling himself was showing bits and pieces of the upcoming The Abyss DVD to the gathered fans. All of them left in awe after seeing this incredible release first-handedly. There can be no doubt that Fox is having a huge winner on their hands here.
In regards to future releases, Fox is preparing a box set that contains all five parts of the Planet Of The Apes series, as we had pointed out quite some time ago. The project is finally coming together it seems and a box set of the release is loosely scheduled for release around Christmas this year. Since these titles have been in preparation for some time already, the projects started before Fox made their 16x9 commitment and as a result these films will contain standard widescreen transfers from what we have been able to find out.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is celebrating its 25^th Anniversary this year and Fox is planning to have a DVD of the movie out by October. Plans call for an elaborate special edition, although details have not yet been determined. Also in preparation is an eagerly anticipated special edition of Edward Scissorhands with an anamorphic widescreen transfer.
Another series of highly requested titles from Fox is the Omen series, which will find its way to DVD by the end of the year if everything goes according to plan.
 

New Line Home Video

Hardly a title has been shrouded in more secrecy these days than New Line’s work on David Fincher’s Se7en. However progress is made as we hear and the title has finally been re-transferred for the DVD under the supervision of David Fincher himself. Quite interesting was the fact that Fincher decided to present the movie without the bold look of the silver-retention that was used for the film’s theatrical presentation. The result should be a very new experience of the movie as the contrast and coloring will look quite differently as a result.

Work is also in progress on DVD Platinum Editions of Magnolia as well as of Boogie Nights, but New Line Home Video is not yet able to confirm and features for those releases at this time. Somewhere down the line in the future, re-releases of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Mask are planned, mostly to give these films anamorphic transfers, but no specific details have been planned as of yet.

MGM Home Entertainment

While talking to the representatives form MGM Home Entertainment we were able to find out that The Fog has disappeared from release line-ups for some reason, and no one really seems to know why, which will certainly come as a disappointment to a number of fans of this stylish movie. Speaking of disappointment, many fans will also be saddened to hear that the release of Princess Bride has been degraded to be a standard release without bonus materials when it will be released in August.

On the good side however, MGM is planning a release of Escape From New York in November and Pumpkinhead in May, and during the summer we will see releases of FX and FX/2, as well as a release of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
The studio is also currently preparing a special edition release of Supernova that will feature a lot of behind-the-scenes material, including deleted scenes. The producer of the disc is reportedly scouring all the available material right now to determine what will eventually end up on the DVD.
MGM Home Entertainment is also planning to release a Woody Allen Collection this summer as a box set. The set will contain Annie, Bananas, Sleeper, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Interiors and others. The box set will contain 8 discs that will also be sold separately.
The studio is also currently working on a special edition of Platoon for a fall release, and towards the end of the year we will see a special edition of James Cameron’s original Terminator which is slated for a release in November. None other than Van Ling, who also did the special edition of “The Abyss” and is currently working on Artisan’s release of “Terminator 2” will create this release.

Warner Home Video

Good news come along from Warner Home Video. Kelly’s Heroes is in preparation for a May release, and June will see the release of Shaft, Shaft's Big Score and Shaft In Africa, all three will come with anamorphic transfers and these DVDs will reportedly be the first widescreen home video releases ever.
Unfortunately the RKO library is on the backburner at Warner’s mostly due to the fact that the films are in very bad shape. Since the restoration of these film classics will require a lot of time and money, only a few selected films from the library will make it to DVD anytime soon. One of them is the classic King Kong which will hopefully come towards the end of the year, as well as Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Early next year then a release of the original The Thing is planned.
Warner also has plans to release North By Northwest later this year, and still no fficial word is had on an upcoming release of Superman.

Universal Home Video

The folks at Universal are plowing away at more Alfred Hitchcock releases and will release Marnie, The Man Who Knew Too Much and Rope as part of the series. Universal has also remixed Steven Spielberg’s Jaws with a 5.1 soundtrack and will release the film as a special edition later this year. Also Jurassic Park is slated for release later in the year, but no exact details are known on any of these films. Man On The Moon and Snow Falling On Cedars are currently prepared for day and date releases with their VHS counterparts in May.

As we had reported before, Universal will also continue their Classic Monster Collection later this year. The first release will be The Creature From Black Lagoon, followed by The Invisible Man, the 1943 version of Phantom of the Opera, It Came From Outer Space, and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Columbia TriStar Home Video

Everybody was probably hopeful to find out more about he upcoming special edition of Men In Black but unfortunately the representative from Columbia was unable to confirm any details on the release, keeping the details floating around the Internet in the rumor category.
Some interesting information did show up from Columbia however. A special edition of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula is in the planning stages and although it may use some of the material from the Criterion release, Columbia intends to have completely new supplements added to the release as well. In all honesty, I can’t wait for this one...
Lawrence Of Arabia is also still under heavy development, as we had already pointed out at the last Studio Day, and still the project is nowhere near completion. Whenever it will be done, it will done, is the attitude at Columbia who make sure they give the producers enough leeway to make this a stellar release.
The special edition of Guns Of Navarone seems to get close to completion and an official announcement is expected rather soon, and in June we will see the release of the Ray Harryhausen calssic  The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad.

This Studio Day was slightly lighter this time than it was in November and good information was scarce. Nonetheless it was a pleasure as usual to hook up with some of the studio representatives to hear what is happening on their end.

If you ever make it to Hollywood, be it during a vacation, business trip, or because you live in the area, make sure to stop by Dave’s Video - The Laser Place who make these regular Studio Day events possible. You can easily find their incredibly well-sorted store on 12144 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City.

 November 21, 1999