Universal Repercussions
Though Universal has said nothing irreplaceable was lost in the studio fire on Sunday, according to Anne Thompson, a memo from NBC Universal Distribution vice president Paul Ginsburg went out Monday to those who book classic films saying that nearly 100% of the archive prints kept on the lot were destroyed.
In the short term, this means that orders for films coming directly from the studio are cancelled. Obviously, in cases where the prints are stored in other locations, the bookings will still be honored.
The long-term picture is less clear. Since the original films are safe, new prints can be made, but will the studio be interested in the enormous cost outlay this would involve?
Filed under: News
Related Posts: - Arrested Big Screen Development? No Touching!
- Universal Studios Fire
- A Universal Concern
- Subsidies and 3-D May Spur Transition to Digital
- Del Toro Gets Busy. Poo-tee-tweet
Ah, there’s the true suck.
I knew there was more to this than damage to the sets. Damn.
What worries me isn’t so much that there won’t be as many prints of JAWS and BACK TO THE FUTURE floating around out there, but the fact that some of the rarer prints might only have had a total of one print, quite possibly stored on site at Universal. When something like this happens, some really great movies could be lost forever. I hope that if nothing else, this teaches the studios the importance of preserving all of their movies in digital form in the event of a catastrophe like this.
True, although it’s been proven that digital copies degrade just as easily and quickly as analog copies do. Even worse, a studio could experience a drive or read failure on a disc storing the digital copy of a film and lose that copy completely, where as an analog negative or print may be able to be partially or completely restored after the fact.
Those DVDs on your shelf are rotting and degrading at the same rate VHS or film copies would. Built-in obsolescence…so they can sell it to you again in 5-10 years.
But to your point Paul, the sad fact is that a Pickup on South Street or Paths of Glory archive print that was the last the studio had may now be out of circulation and that is indeed awful news.
A truly horrible shame.
Joel~~
Perhaps, but a degrading copy is better than no copy. I’m thinking in particular of the Universal film PRIVILEGE, of which there is only one known 35mm print in existence, one which they’re so skittish about that when they do rent it out to exhibitors (at a fairly high price for a relatively obscure film) they insist that it be run reel-to-reel only to avoid excess wear and tear. I’m sure there are many other examples of films of this sort in their vault, and they couldn’t all have been salvaged or magically rented out to exhibitors when the fire hit.
I found this great article from the NYT regarding this issue from last December. The impacts of digital are fairly deep in this respect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/business/media/23steal.html
Paul, the site was spamming me all morning, so I wasn’t able to respond. Sure, a digital copy is better than no copy although I still question how this would really help older and/or obscure films get shown in today’s (or possibly tomorrow’s) art house theaters and film fests. In my limited experience, only a small handful of newer multiplex theaters are even installing digital projection. The theaters most likely to screen these types of films are the ones least likely to be able to upgrade their systems.
My impression Paul is that something like Privilege wouldn’t have been stored at the vault that burned…I could be wrong about that, wouldn’t be the first time.
Even if I’m right, this is still bad news. If there is no financial incentive for Universal to strike new prints of the films that were l lost, no one will ever see them and that’s a shame.
Universal apparently owns all of Paramount’s pre 1950s films as well.
This sucks. My archivist friend had to cancel screenings already. He doubts we’ll see some of this stuff again. Which is still ridiculous given the money being made. It should not be an economic problem.