Finally: The Fly (1986) and The Fly II (1989) Special Editions are coming in Fall of 2005!

Its about damn time! This classic, along with EVERY other film Cronenberg has ever made that doesn't have a SE already, is long overdue for SE treatment.

i might just sell the current disc....i consider "FLY II" just an extra on it :-)

I hope Fly 2 gets included on the new reease as well, or gets a seperate release.

is the FLY2 any good? i never even bothered watching it after reading some horrible reviews.....

I would think the deleted scenes will be separate. As long as we see them at *all*, it's cool, right?


I'm quite giddy at the moment. Wow.


Anyway, although Fly II is a rather poor film, I find it's one of those bad movies that are actually fun to watch and pick apart. Also, it has cool effects, and many references to the first film (and part of a deleted scene from that film, as well).

The Fly II would make a good SE too. Chris Walas commentary would be a must, as would behind-the-scenes info, and the few deleted scenes (the most interesting one involves Martin vomiting corrosive enzymes on the windshield of a car full of teens heckling him). I'd snap up a Fly II SE, you bet!

Yeah, once the 1986 version gets the SE treament, the original would also be a good candidate.

Problem is, director Kurt Neumann is dead, as is Vincent Price.

The 2000 AMC documentary The Fly Papers discussed all 5 films, and had interviews with David Hedison and other Fly 58 survivors (as well as Chris Walas, who could do a great Fly II commentary, I think).

I guess I may be in the minority, but of the 4 Fly films I've seen (never even knew there was sort of a fifth), I think Cronenberg's Fly is the best and the original a close second, so I'd rather see these two together, if anything. I mean, it's the original that is related to Cronenberg's, Fly II has nothing to do with his film. I think the other two common Fly versions are already adequately represented...

Congrats on the announcement Greg K!!! I know you have been pushing for an SE of this one for some time now. ..As for myself, I'm still holding out for the "Escape from New York" SE.

(The "other" GregK)

Yeah, I was just watching Carpenter's The Thing CE last night. That's a great DVD, especially the "Terror Takes Shape" documentary. We can only hope The Fly gets similar (better) treatment.

"Other" GregK - you do know that there's an ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK S.E coming on Dec 27th, don't you ?

wow this is fantastic news indeed

Indeed. I can only hope the deleted scenes, rare photos, etc. have not deteriorated or been lost over the years.

Let's hope for the best.

The screenplay to The Fly is fantastic, IMHO.

I have a slightly revised version of Charles Edward Pogue's script, and a Cronenberg draft. Including both of these (as DVD-ROM extras, perhaps?) would be a good way to show how the script evolved. There are many common elements, but you can see where Cronenberg's stuff makes things better.

I definitely will get the SE of The Fly and get
rid of my double feature disc. I don't like The
Fly 2 at all. I hope commentary or interviews with
Goldblum is included with the SE.

Eh? The Pogue version was ostensibly set in the present (circa 1984). Geoff and Barbara Powell were just "50s sitcom stereotypes", according to Cronenber, so he changed them completely.

Yeah, I have a draft of the Fly II script.

The two famous deleted scenes I'm most anxious to see on the DVD are:

- Brundle discovering a small fly leg growing out the side of his waist and breaking it off. I remember Joe Bob Briggs talking about this scene when The Fly was shown on TNT's Monstervision one time. He said it was cut because it was very gory. But I think it ties in with the scene that's still in the film where Brundle is walking on the wall and ceiling when Geena Davis shows up and points out the recent wound on the side of his stomach (after tearing off the fly leg).

- Also deemed too gory for the movie: Brundle's experiment of combining a baboon with a cat in the telepod, which then turns into into a bizarre cat-like ape creature.

These are legendary scenes that I've been dying to see for years! I really hope they are on the DVD.

"- Brundle discovering a small fly leg growing out the side of his waist and breaking it off. I remember Joe Bob Briggs talking about this scene when The Fly was shown on TNT's Monstervision one time. He said it was cut because it was very gory. But I think it ties in with the scene that's still in the film where Brundle is walking on the wall and ceiling when Geena Davis shows up and points out the recent wound on the side of his stomach (after tearing off the fly leg)."

I'd have liked to see the TNT stuff you mention.

Allow me to explain:


When Brundle is with Tawny, and then when Ronnie confronts him about the hairs, he's holding his left side as though it aches. Later on, when he's first seen wall-crawling, he shows off a bulge in that spot ("Oh, look at this. What's this? I don't know.")

After Ronnie tells Stathis she's pregnant, we go to the most legendary deleted sequence: the monkey-cat scene. Brundle tries to find a cure by merging the surviving baboon with a cat. The resulting two-headed monkey-cat creature attacks him, and he is forced to beat it to death with a steel pipe. The scene with the insect leg is really a part of the monkey-cat scene. The distraught Brundle climbs out onto his roof and screams "NO!" as if fighting off the insect urges within. Then, he feels a pain in the bulge on his side. He falls off of the roof and slides down the wall, crashing onto a steel awning. The bulge splits open to reveal a small insect leg. "No, I won't..." Brundle insists as he bends over in a non-human way and amputates the leg with his teeth. He spits it out, and it lands in a mud puddle, where it twitches for a second. We then cut to the beginning of Ronnie's nightmare birth.

The split open bulge can be glimpsed later on in the final cut, and another bulge can be seen on Brundle's left side (it splits open to reveal another fly leg during the final transformation).


It's unclear whether or not the leg amputation scene was in the rough cut. Cinefex # 28 indicates that it was, but the writer of that article told me that the shot of Brundle biting off the leg was underlit and VERY dark, due to DP Mark Irwin unexpectedly having to leave the set and an assistant taking over. Thus, *if* the leg amputation sequence still exists, the footage will have to be restored/digitally brightened somehow.

The monkey-cat scene WAS in the rough cut for sure, but the preview audience took it as Brundle being cruel to animals. I'm pretty sure that will be intact for inclusion on the DVD.

The exact nature of the ending is a bit confusing.

In the draft of the script I have, Ronnie and Stathis are together in bed. She is pregnant with *HIS* child (having presumably aborted Brundle's), then dreams about a baby with butterfly wings being born from a cocoon and flying away.

In a Starlog interview with Geena Davis, however, she describes the scene as her in bed alone, having the dream, then the camera panning down to reveal that she's still very much pregnant with *Brundle's* child.

A Fangoria interview with Croneneberg gives a slight indication that he filmed "multiple" endings, or maybe versions of the one ending.

It may be posssible that there are *two* alternate endings. We'll see (hopefully).

In my script, Stathis clearly states that it's his baby. Perhaps the script was revised later on and this bit was eliminated.