Second Sight Films (UK)

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tenia
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#426 Post by tenia » Fri Jan 11, 2019 6:43 pm

If this is it, I'm now even more glad I didn't go ahead and cave in that French silly crowdfunding campaign.

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dwk
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#427 Post by dwk » Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:18 pm

Exciting news if they are able to do a new scan (or use a new scan, I'm not sure if Second Sight is able to afford to do their own scans) of the theatrical cut.

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tenia
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#428 Post by tenia » Sat Jan 12, 2019 6:07 am

I wouldn't hold my breath. It'll either be the newer 4K restoration or an older HD master, and I definitely know which one I'd prefer and be happy with.

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Cronenfly
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#429 Post by Cronenfly » Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:08 pm

I haven’t been following: is there something wrong with the new 4K restoration?

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dwk
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#430 Post by dwk » Mon Jan 14, 2019 8:33 pm

I haven't seen it, but the 4k Dawn is only the short Argento cut

M Sanderson
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#431 Post by M Sanderson » Wed Jan 16, 2019 4:03 pm

The old Anchor Bay RA is actually very good in terms of PQ.

Obviously no one’s going to complain about a new scan.

Any definitive release, obviously, requires the different cuts of the film.

Why so few details at this point?

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dwk
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#432 Post by dwk » Fri Jan 25, 2019 6:52 pm

Second Sight confirmed they have Dawn of the Dead and Martin
We’re incredibly excited to officially announce our acquisition of George A Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD and MARTIN for UK Blu-ray and VOD following a licensing deal with New Amsterdam Entertainment. We will be releasing later this year and have a lot planned. More details to follow in coming weeks, keep watching this space...

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swo17
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#433 Post by swo17 » Fri Jan 25, 2019 6:56 pm

Sweet, Martin too!

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Finch
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#434 Post by Finch » Fri Jan 25, 2019 7:52 pm

I dread to think how much they had to pay for the rights unless Rubinstein finally came to his senses and made sensible demands. Either way, thrilled that Martin is finally getting the treatment it deserves!

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dwk
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#435 Post by dwk » Fri Jan 25, 2019 8:32 pm

Doubt if Rubinstein come to his senses. On Second Sights Facebook page, Rob Galluzzo said that "...one of the biggest labels in the US negotiated for a year for both of these at a monstrous price, and the day of closing, he decided nah."
I imagine that Scream is the label he is talking about (he has done some special feature work for them.)

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Finch
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#436 Post by Finch » Sat Jan 26, 2019 1:33 am

Which begs the question of how Second Sight managed to get the UK rights from him. I believe he has the global rights to both, no?

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Adam X
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#437 Post by Adam X » Sat Jan 26, 2019 4:05 am

I've no doubt what Rob Galluzzo posted is true, though he also said in the same comment that Rubinstein doesn't own the UK rights, yet he's the CEO of licensee New Amsterdam Ent. I wouldn't be surprised if a US company went in with them to spread the cost; unless for some reason he doesn't view the UK market as valuable (which seems very unlikely).

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dwk
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#438 Post by dwk » Sat Jan 26, 2019 10:27 am

Yeah, he was mistaken about the UK rights (New Amsterdam's site says they have "George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is licensed by New Amsterdam in all media in the USA, English Canada, United Kingdom, Australia/New Zealand, and Latin America" and they have the worldwide rights to Martin.) But, given the size of the population and since the Italian/French/German releases are playable on everyone in the UK's Blu-ray players, Rubinstein might see less value in the UK market or less value in holding out in the UK market.

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MichaelB
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#439 Post by MichaelB » Sat Jan 26, 2019 10:55 am

This misunderstanding may stem from the time when the original plan was to release the Argento cut in the UK, presumably licensed from him. But when it became clear that there would be extensive BBFC cuts to a version where the gore was close to the sole raison d’être, the Romero version was licensed and released instead, presumably from Rubinstein.

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dwk
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#440 Post by dwk » Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:05 am

Galluzzo appears to have deleted his posts saying that a US release is never happening.

On to the question of a new scan. This post from Michele De Angelis is, if true/accurate, good news
...interpositive for argento 's cut, interpositive extended, i believe OCN of Theatrical. I am taking care of the Argento's cut. And anyway Second Sight got access to Richard' s materials.

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Adam X
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#441 Post by Adam X » Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:41 am

Interesting. This is sounding more and more promising.

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colinr0380
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#442 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Jan 28, 2019 1:24 pm

MichaelB and dwk seem correct on this. Perry Martin and Richard Rubinstein talk about the distribution of Dawn of the Dead at the beginning of the producer's commentary over the extended cut in that four disc "Ultimate Edition" DVD set that Anchor Bay put out in the mid 2000s. The film was a co-production between Rubinstein and the Italian consortium of Claudio Argento, Alfredo Cuomo and Dario Argento:
RR:...we basically, I don't want to sound too Hollywood, but we divided up the world

PM: I see, in terms of distribution?

RR: Yes. Alfredo, Claudio and Dario represented "the foreign group"

PM: And that would include Asia as well?

RR: Yes, that would include...to oversimplify it we kept the English language world and they got everything else, with the exception of Latin America which was also part of our territories rather than theirs. That was the foreign language exception. And that arrangement stands to this day, and Alfredo, Claudio, Dario, their group, continue to distribute the movie, and the movie still continues to get distributed on our side in our territories.

PM: And of course they cut an alternate version of the film

RR: Well, yes. Dario cut a version of it, and they had the right to do that, that he felt reflected more of what I'll call, let's call it an "Italian sensibility" or a foreign sensibility, which was in theory he was taking out some of the valleys or slower moments in the film that he felt for a foreign audience that they would lose it because of the dialogue and there was slang or whatever. Or just the fact that there was dialogue at all. Even today there is a certain predisposition that movies are easier to distribute to foreign territories if they have less dialogue and more action. They travel well because you do not have to worry about translation subtleties or looping. So Dario's version was 2:01 out of our 2:06

There's a story that goes with that in terms of the UK which is that initially it was a territory that was going to stay with the Italians. It was the other exception. I cannot remember what came up but we renegotiated something and England became theirs in terms of the amount of the advance and ours after that. Of course the expectation was that there was going to be an advance and then there would be nothing after that! It did not turn out that way. In the course of things the UK distributor Neil Agran and his company bringing the film in they had to put it through the censor, which was a guy named James Ferman, and James basically looked at Dario's version which was the version which was submitted, and he wanted to take thirty minutes out, which would have been a catastrophe. It would not have been the same movie. We then submitted to him the 2:06, the US theatrical release version, and he only wanted to take out a minute or two. The difference he said was that he now understood the motivation. This was not gratuitous violence and it had a context, and it was that context that Dario had taken out which for an English language viewer certainly was important.

PM: Are you talking about the satirical content?

RR: No, I'm not. What I'm saying is that the five minutes that Dario took out, which I'll call the valleys without being specific, took away for Ferman what he saw as justification for some of the scenes that he initially thought were gratuitous in terms of violence and they gave him a character rationale that Dario had sliced away for the 'pure action' audience.
Interestingly it has been the even longer 2:17 'extended Cannes version' (which I prefer with the even longer longeurs!) that is the only one that has been shown on UK television by the BBC so far. Albeit with certain edits made.

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MichaelB
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Second Sight Films (UK)

#443 Post by MichaelB » Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:03 pm

That may well be the interview that I was précising above from memory, so thanks for that.

Orlac
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#444 Post by Orlac » Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:00 am

When I first saw Dawn, it was on BBC2 in 2000. It was the Cannes version but cut to match the earlier BBFC edits so it was missing a LOT of gore. By that point, the Cannes version had just come out on UK DVD with a few seconds of cuts -one of which was a reaction to the Dunblane Massacre.

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colinr0380
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#445 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Jan 30, 2019 6:05 am

Orlac wrote:
Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:00 am
When I first saw Dawn, it was on BBC2 in 2000. It was the Cannes version but cut to match the earlier BBFC edits so it was missing a LOT of gore. By that point, the Cannes version had just come out on UK DVD with a few seconds of cuts -one of which was a reaction to the Dunblane Massacre.
Yes, the child zombies getting shot (there is an awkard edit from them running out of the door to rolling off of the couch without any gunshot sound) was also missing from the first time the BBC aired Dawn in 1997, which would have been even closer to the Dunblane situation, although it was present in the VHS release of the extended version (erroneously called the director's cut) at the same time. I was actually a bit more incensed by the edits made to Tetsuo II: Body Hammer in that one and only UK television showing in the same Extreme Cinema season, which made a couple of significant television edits for perhaps understandable reasons but ones which completely destroy the narrative (and seething anger that motivates the characters) of the film:
Spoiler for the flashback sequence in Testuo II: Body HammerShow
The explanatory childhood flashback sequence (NSFW, even though it does not contain the last minute or so of end of the scene) of the father playing a rough sex game wielding his gun during an extended scene with the mother, which inevitably ends with him accidentally shooting her (maybe a homage to Cronenberg's contemporaneous Naked Lunch?). That act gets witnessed by the two brothers the father has been experimenting on and the trauma causes 'the bad one' (but which actually is the bad one?) to mutate first and shoot his father's face off (as well as suggested to actually fully kill the mother himself as well in his unfocused rage) in graphic and extended fashion.

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dwk
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#446 Post by dwk » Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:19 am

From facebook:
GEORGE A ROMERO’S DAWN OF THE DEAD is coming to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in the UK and will feature ’Theatrical’, ‘Cannes’ and ‘Argento’ cuts!! We will also be releasing on standard Blu-ray together with our Blu-ray release of MARTIN. Many thanks to producer Richard P Rubinstein for allowing us access to the original elements, which includes the original camera negative for Dawn and dupe negative for Martin. New 4K scans are underway at Final Frame in New York which will be followed by grading and extensive restoration supervised by DP Michael Gornick. It will then be over to David Mackenzie at Fidelity in Motion for mastering and encoding. Currently slated for a late summer release, more news to follow….

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tenia
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#447 Post by tenia » Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:25 am

I'm certainly trusting this team more than the French one currently planning DotD's release in here. Plus, they're planning a split release with a simple 1-cut UHD/BD combo (at 40€) and a BD boxset with the 3 cuts and the extras at 70€. Needless to say I'm probably going to save some money AND get a better release via SS.

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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#448 Post by What A Disgrace » Fri Feb 08, 2019 12:57 pm

That's a Hell of a way to break into UHD. Super excited.

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Finch
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#449 Post by Finch » Fri Feb 08, 2019 3:12 pm

It's a pity there doesn't seem to be a UHD release planned for Martin (not yet anyway). That would persuade me to upgrade (I'm one of the minority that prefers Day to Dawn).

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Roscoe
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Re: Second Sight Films (UK)

#450 Post by Roscoe » Fri Feb 08, 2019 3:51 pm

And now the long wait begins for some kind of US Region One release....

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