VSDA - Friday


	VSDA ‘99 - Friday, July 9


	Today we started early because the VSDA had prepared an interesting keynote panel this morning called “DVD and the filmmaker”. Movie critic Leonard Maltin was hosting a keynote panel with a number of directors who were more than willing to share their experience and perception of DVD in today’s marketplace, as well as its role in the future. We will bring you a detailed recollection of the keynote in the next days. Sorry for the delay but please bear with us, as we have to go through all our notes and have to write it all up. After a long day on the show floor this is nothing we feel like doing at this point in time and we hope you understand.

NEW LINE HOME VIDEO
Freddy is currently on everyone’s mind and much of the information about the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street series has been available for a while now. New Line will release a box set with all 7 parts of the series and for now only the first installment in the series, Wes Craven’s original Nightmare, will be available as a separate disc. The box set will also contain an eighth disc that will be filled with supplements, including a new documentary called Welcome To My Nightmare. New Line went to quite some lengths with this release, which is hardly surprising, as the Elm Street series can be considered the company’s crown jewels. Hence all the discs will feature brand new anamorphic transfers. The supplements will be richer than ever and the documentary will not only take you on a journey to the Elm Street, but to the beginnings of New Line Cinema in general. Wes Craven himself has been

contributing substantially to the supplements according to New Line Home Video to make sure Freddy is making his ultimate entrance on DVD. Among the other supplements will be commentary tracks, fan comments, a trivia game, the original screenplays of all the films and the original Dokken music video for “Dream Warriors” starring Freddy Krueger, among many other rare and unseen materials. A breathtaking opening animation and fully animated menus will round up the releases. We sure can’t wait to get our hands on that package.

Preparations are also under way for a release of Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me later this fall. To the contrary of widespread rumors, the release will not contain a multi-angle feature however. This cool addition has been preserved for another

upcoming release but we are unfortunately not yet allowed to tell you which one that is.

In our extensive conversation with New Line’s Michael Mulvihill this morning we were able to learn about an interesting change in New Line’s future releases. The company has established sort of a bottom line that will be met for all standard releases which includes strict usage of 16x9 enhanced transfers as well as pan & scan versions on the same disc. Unlike their previous releases that came on double sided DVD-10s however, New Line is about to switch all future releases to dual layer DVD-9s which will allow viewers to select the desired aspect ratio from the main menu. Great move! We wished more studios would follow New Line’s lead.


	MGM HOME ENTERTAINMENT Although MGM was not exhibiting at the show, we were able to find out some details about an exciting release from the company on September 14. Get ready for a special edition of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. The disc will contain behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of the film called The Mod Odyssey. It will also feature two separate commentary tracks, one with one of the film’s animators and the other one with the film’s designer. You will also be treated to an isolated audio track on the DVD featuring all the Beatles classics from the film. Also on the disc will be interviews, storyboard sequences of scenes that were not part of the final film, a photo gallery, the theatrical trailer and much more. The film has been digitally restored and also features a full 5.1 channel Dolby Digital soundtrack.

SONY MUSIC
Sony Music gave us a look into their upcoming line-up and apart from the titles you can already find in our “Film Vault”, Sony Music is now also starting to release titles from the MTV library on DVD. On November 2 we will see Tai-Funk Aerobics, a video featuring an innovative workout that combines dance with martial arts. On September 28, Sony Music will then release The Real World You Never Saw: Hawaii, featuring completely unseen footage from the Hawaii cast of the Real World series.

SONY WONDER
Sony’s Family branch is bringing the original Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer to DVD on August 31. They will also expand

their Sesame Street releases and bring Do The Alphabet and 123 Count With Me to DVD on August 31. Before those titles however, on August 10, we will see their Little Witch on DVD, based on beloved children’s books.

A&E HOME ENTERTAINMENT
A stop at A&E Home Entertainment’s booth gave us the chance to find out more about their future plans in the DVD arena. Later this year we will see more of the original Avengers when A&E releases the ‘65 and ‘66 seasons of the series in two box sets each. A&E will then continue with that pattern and release probably two waves of box sets of the Avenger series every year. The same is true with Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The series of the British cult comics will be released in box sets, bringing you one season at a time.

Starting next year then A&E Home Video will also start releasing their other content, like their Biographies and Literary Collection, as well as the A&E Favorites.


	AVALANCHE HOME ENTERTAINMENT This rather new publisher in the DVD field who is distributed through M.T.I. Home Video is lining up a number of direct-to-video titles for release on DVD. Undercurrent, an action film with Lorenzo Lamas is coming on July 27. National Lampoon's Golf Punks is readied for a release on August 10 together with Michael Jordan: An American Hero. On August 24 we will see Big City Blues from the producers of Barb Wire, starring Burt Reynolds and William Forsythe. September 14 will bring us Fugitive Mind, a genetic nightmare on the verge of insanity with Michael Dudikoff, October 12 will see Hitman’s Run, featuring Eric Roberts. On November 9 then G-2 will hit the streets, starring Daniel Bernhardt.


	STERLING HOME VIDEO The independent publisher that brought us some remarkable DVD releases is currently working on a DVD release of Southie, day & date with its VHS counterpart on September 7. Southie is starring Donnie Wahlberg and Rose McGowan and will contain a commentary track. On August 3 we will see Sterling’s next entry in their Millenium Series with The Confession, a thriller starring Alec Baldwin and Ben Kingsley. The disc will contain 3 different audio commentary tracks with the director, actors, writer and the producer, extensive behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, as well as a photo gallery. The disc will also contain DVD-ROM only content in the form of the film’s entire screenplay that will allow you to directly access film scenes from the script.

ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT
Today was our time to visit Anchor Bay to see what they are up to and we were greeted by a THICK book of release announcements. The material is way too lengthy to be listed here, but we will insert all the information in our database as soon as possible so that you can take a look at all the titles and details there. To give you an idea about their schedule though, here are some of the titles. We have covered many of them on these pages already, but finally they have rough dates attached.
August: Night Of The Living Dead 30^th Anniversary - this is the newly re-worked version of George A. Romero’s classic with newly shot footage, directed by Tom Savini. We will have much more information on that title soon. Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper and the great I Saw What You Did, as well as Hell Night and the Trilogy Of Terror.

September - Rebecca, Notorious, Spellbound and Hammer’s The Repitle, Rasputin The Mad Monk and Plague Of The Zombies.

October - Django/Django Strikes Again, Army Of Darkness, Watcher In The Woods, Fitzcarraldo and Two-Lane Blacktop.

We spend quite a bit of time with Anchor Bay’s Jay Douglas to discuss current affairs on the Halloween Special Editions and I am very happy to report that we have new material in hands! We will update the Production Diary soon to make sure you, too, will have the chance to see what we have been able to rake in for you, thanks to Anchor Bay’s friendly generosity. Good progress is made on the release and things are now happening quite fast it seems.... but wait until you read our latest findings.

Anchor Bay has become very determined and embracing of the DVD format and it is great so see how much money and effort the company is putting into their releases. We had announced earlier already that all future Anchor Bay releases will feature 16x9 enhanced widescreen transfers - with the exception of the titles licensed from Disney - and just in general Anchor Bay is taking film collectors and the fans of their library extremely serious. As always, Jay was truly infectious in his indomitable enthusiasm

when he told us about the upcoming titles, projects and plans.

Anchor Bay also had Bruce Campbell from the “Evil Dead” series at the booth to sign autographs for the fans. As expected there were long lines as everyone wanted to meet “Ash” and talk to the charming star. Bruce, by the way, is very involved in the upcoming special edition of “Army Of Darkness”, but more on that at a later time.
Anchor Bay had also prepared a very rare occasion for film lovers and presented German director Werner Herzog in a rare autograph session. Herzog was in town also to record the commentary track for the upcoming DVD version of his film “Fitzcarraldo” and was very excited about the newly remixed 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack of the disc. We have been able to catch up with both, Bruce Campbell and Werner Herzog, for some interviews that we will present at a later time. We have also been able to get a few extra autographs from both, which we will give away to some lucky readers in a post-VSDA competition.


	DREAMWORKS HOME VIDEO Another meeting took us to Dreamworks Home Video where we tried to find out more about their impending release plans. Unfortunately the DVD version of Saving Private Ryan is still on hold. The folks at Dreamworks have already started gathering material for a Signature Edition of the film as we had reported earlier, but they are currently awaiting Steven Spielberg’s go-ahead to continue work on the project. We will keep you posted when this status is changing.


	At the moment Dreamworks is working on Forces Of Nature and a special edition of Prince Of Egypt. “Forces of Nature” will include an interesting alternate ending, while “Prince Of Egypt” will feature a plethora of supplements. As we had informed you earlier, we will be doing a Production Diary for the “Prince Of Egypt” Signature Edition. It will take you

behind the scenes to let you partake in the effort Dreamworks is going through to bring this epic story to life on DVD, and the four-years adventure to create the film in the first place. Expect this new Production Diary to start in about a week or two. We do have a lot of information at this point already, but we need to organize it and make sure we get more details from the producers over at Dreamworks. The disc’s producer Steve Gustafson was very open about all technical issues, as well as content related questions of the release, giving us plenty of great material to work with in the extensive and nice meeting we had.

At the same time, Dreamworks are currently putting plans together for a day & date DVD release of their upcoming horror thriller The Haunting, for release much later this year.

WARNER HOME VIDEO
There wasn’t much news at the Warner booth. The company had announced all their titles before the show already. As a result Warner mainly focused on pleasing the attendees with autograph sessions with a number of their stars, ranging from Hollywood “Hulk” Hogan, a Teletubby photo opportunity and stars from Analyze This.

Many of you have requested us to find out what the deal is with Little Shop Of Horrors. When Warner pulled the release from the shelves last year due to a legal dispute, official word had it the disc would be re-released in a slightly altered form. Well, ever since the title has literally vanished from release schedules and even a conversation with Warner executives did not bring up anything new on the issue. It almost seems as if the folks at Warner have forgotten about that particular release.


	UNIVERSAL HOME VIDEO Just like Warner, Universal had made all of its title announcements before the show. It gave them the luxury to completely focus on autograph sessions with stars from their films, which drew huge crowds. Yesterday during Arnold Vosloo’s signing the wait has easily gone into the 30 minutes, and when today the star from October Sky came to sign pictures for their fans, the lines were once again just as long. Nevertheless we have been able to get some autographs for some lucky readers in our contest, while the wait gave us the chance to take scary pictures with the Universal Monsters that were walking the floor around Universal’s booth.

ADULT EXPO
We also paid a short visit to the show’s Adult section and to our amazement it had literally exploded. The Adult section is separated form the regular exhibits and when we entered the hall it was immediately obvious that it had grown quite a bit. A quick look into the details revealed that from last year’s 60 exhibitors, the Adult Expo had this year grown to host some 110 individual exhibitors. Not all were as classy as the market leaders and a lot of them seemed like small home-made outlets. Clearly Vivid, Wicked Video, VCA and Metro dominated the floor with both their attractive setups and their girls who were there to sign images for the numerous attendees.

Okay folks, that’s all for today from the show. Tomorrow we will write the final round-up for you to make sure we give you the full scoop on what information was out there at the show, so check back over the weekend and see for yourself.


	Here are some covers of upcoming titles for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy...








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