benbess
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A few points of comparison that came to me to put the possible less than c.$ 600k cost of a full restoration for Man Who Knew Too Much into perspective.Robert Harris said:Just for fun, I ran a rough budget on this film, to put things in perspective.
The cost for all restoration and preservation in 4k by the best post house in the business, would run far less than 600k.
That number includes pristine restoration, with a final result looking as it did in 1956, inclusive of a 4k DCP, HD video master, restored audio, archived data files, and one more item.
A record of the data out to a new VistaVision 8-perf negative, as well as a Vista check print.
This is not a matter of millions of dollars.
RAH
One hour long episode of the current TV show Hawaii 5-0 (really 45 minutes when you take out the commercials) probably costs at least $3 million. And even one episode of a half our comedy today costs a lot more than the restoration of this classic film.
The original budget of Man2 is said by imdb to be about $2.5 million, which really underestimates the cost because Hitchcock and Stewart took a nominal fee in exchange for a share of a profits in their film. In other words, making a movie like this today would cost much more than the $25 million or so that a quick adjustment for inflation would seem to indicate.
But in any case the costs of a restoration seem reasonable for a film of this quality.
This is a movie with priceless talents no longer working in the biz who happened to capture lighting in a bottle with this extraordinary film. A lot of planning, work, blood, sweat and tears went into it as well. The great production designer Henry Bumstead first worked with Hitchcock on this production, and said something like "never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd be working for Hitchcock!" He also said something to the effect that everyone on a Hitchcock film knocked themselves out to do their absolute best work for someone who was revered even at the time in the business. Hitchcock's calm word for someone whose work was up to the level he expected was that he or she was a "professional." Once when Bumstead wanted Hitchcock to look at one of his sets he had poured work into, Hitchcock pretended to not be that interested and said something like: well, you're a professional and I'm sure it's professional work. I got this info for Bumstead's autobiography that I read a while ago.
Anyway, this is just a polite plea for Universal to go back to this key title and do an appropriate restoration sooner rather than later. There's a reason that this film serves as my little picture ID here, and that's because it is my favorite of all of Hitchcock's many wonderful films.