Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last! (1 Viewer)

[Greg_S_H]

Now that these are coming, I hope we don't have to wait too long for some Samuel L. Bronkowitz films on DVD.

 

[Simon Howson]

I just hope the transfers are made from the large format / aperture negatives, and not just 35mm reductions.

 

[Brian Sharp]

If you go to this link:

http://www.in70mm.com/widescreen_wee...ers/images.htm

and scroll down the page will see that Fall of the Roman Empire is annotated as Ultra Panavision for the Bradford widescreen weekend (2006). I didn't see this screening but certainly the UK prints I handled were all spherical.

 

[Manus]

Fall of the Roman Empire and others are already available from here :


http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=TCDL-1059

along with some others .

great stuff !

~M~

 

[Mark Anthony]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, nothing anyone has said has explained the variation between shooting ratio and the ratio of certain prints. Image quality of a UP neg Vs standard 70mm is not a factor I'm aware of.

I await with baited breath the final product and if any of our resident expert's has something to add on this issue I'd be intrigued as to their thoughts.

M

 

[Jon Lidolt]

Roman Empire was released by Paramount in the U.S. and Canada on 2.2:1 spherical 70mm prints. I saw it in Toronto's long-gone University theatre and I can confirm that the image quality was not only outstanding but because the picture was composed with cropping in mind, nothing of importance was missing at the sides of the picture.

 

[Brian Sharp]

After all this speculation of 2.20:1 and 2.76:1 we will probably end up with a full frame pan & scan version!

 

[OliverK]

Regarding the Ultra Panavision format that FOTRE was shot in:

There is some discussion as to whether the not so favorable previews of Fall were the reason for this movie "only" to be released as a flat print, so this is one reason for asking whether the flat prints were intended from the beginning or if they indeed represented a change of plans later in the production/release chain.

Another point is that I do think that especially the outdoor scenes in the Roman forums are a bit cramped at times and the other question is of course why at all go from Technirama 70 to Ultra Panavision when flat 70 mm prints were planned from the beginning ?
After three previous Super Technirama 70 productions this doesn't make sense to me....

In any case I look forward to the Bronston Epics and Land of the Pharaohs and I hope very much that we will see them released both as SD and HD versions - these movies would gain a lot from a high definition presentation.

 

[Eric Peterson]

Anybody else receive an E-mail from Amazon concerning "Land of the Pharohs"?

I received one saying that it is now available for the low price of $114.00.

The link was valid and everything. Obviously some sort of error, but funny nonetheless.

 

[OliverK]

I received one saying that it is now available for the low price of $114.00.
QUOTE]

Obviously you bought two given the very attractive price

 

[Patrick McCart]

Mad World is 2.55:1, which is correct for the general release 35mm scope prints (and the usually projected UP aspect ratio).

 

[john a hunter]

EMPIRE opened in London to rave reviews. The prints were spherical not anamorphic 70mm.A week later it opened in New YORK to very poor reviews and box office.Its reception would have had no effect on the type of print that would have been ordered and checked well before any opening.

My hunch as to why Ultra was chosen was that at one stage a "Cinerama" release was contemplated and when Empire went into production that was the way to go.There was a lot of buzz in the industry about the new single lens Cinerama.Also processing facilities in Europe for 65mm had only just started up-the 70 mm Lawrence prints had to come from L.A. Technirama was basically a 35mm process .This was a great advantage in the late '50's -early 60's but also one of the reasons its popularity started to fade from '63 onwards as "pure"65/70 became available.

 

[OliverK]

I know that the movie was well received and more of a success in Europe but I was referring to PREviews and decisions that were made BEFORE the London premiere.

The funny thing is that apparently this was a rather successful movie outside of the US, but its box office failure in the US is the predomoniant impression that remains today with regard to its commercial success.

 

[David_B_K]

It also got a lot of negative reviews in the U.S. A few critics saw it for the intelligent epic it is, but most panned it.

 

[SteveJKo]

Mark, let me second what you say here! My 38 inch widescreen HDTV is obviously much smaller than the 82" screen you mention in your post. Yet both "Ben-Hur" and "Mutiny On The Bounty" look spectacular on it.

As to the notion of cropping Ultra-Panavision down to Super Panavision size for home theatre release, to fill more of the widescreen TV, isn't that the same argument pan and scan lovers used as to why they wanted 2.40:1 films cropped down for standard shaped TV's? Personally, back before I owned a widescreen set, I was so happy to finally have ultra wide "Ben-Hur" in it's OAR that I didn't mind watching it even on my 27" standard TV.

 

[OliverK]

Here's another vote for an Ultra Panavision release for Fall (and hopefully Raintree County).

I watched Ultra Panavision movies on 20, 100, and 122" wide screens and always prefer that to the option to crop it down to fill more screen real estate.

2.55 would still be acceptable though and was probably the AR of many theatrical releases.

 

[john a hunter]

I know that the movie was well received and more of a success in Europe but I was referring to PREviews and decisions that were made BEFORE the London premiere.

Paramount were talking 50 odd 70mm prints BEFORE the London Premiere for its US release which would have been underway if not ready by the time of its New York premiere.The theatres would have been booked and a release plan worked out. If it had been" Cinerama-ed", I expect the prints would have been anamorphic, but that was not the release strategy and as the theatres booked used standard 70mm, they would have and did, use spherical 70 prints. The poor reviews resulted in cutting back the release and prints, not suddenly scraping anamorphic prints and replacing them.
I just hope we get a HD DVD release in the next few months. If it's the full Ultra Pan ratio, at least we'll be seeing more than was ever seen before which is much better than seeing zero which is what we have had to put up with since the old laser disc for some 10 years .

 

[Douglas R]

Land of the Pharoahs is due June 26. Digital Bits say Warner Bros has announced a set titled "Cult Camp Classics: Historical Epics" comprisiong, Colossus of Rhodes, The Prodigal and Land of the Pharoahs.

 

[Mark Cappelletty]

Any more news about El Cid and the others? I'm watching it on LD and, man, Hi-Def has sure ruined up LD upconversion for me.

 

[Douglas R]

Confirmation is here:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...4595290&EDATE=