Blue Underground/William Lustig interview up at PopImage.com (1 Viewer)

[Anthony Thorne]

For what it's worth, Lustig himself admitted to me in an interview down here in Melbourne that he had geared BU to 'follow in the footsteps' of Criterion, and he was trying to match the standards that they had established, (right down to using the same transfer and mastering facilities as them in some instances). He also repeated the reasons that Drew gave for not wanting to do any further spaghetti westerns.

I'll mention as well that I'm generally more excited about BU's future slate than I am Criterion's (they're both great, but I'm an unrepentant Eurocult/Jess Franco fan, so there you go). Funnily enough, Bill mentioned THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (of all titles) was a massive success for BU - it sold much better than they expected - and the returns on that title would be financing a lot of new BU acquisitions.

Someone should post the cover of BU's upcoming VENUS IN FURS disc, as it's simply one of the coolest covers ever.

 

[soop.spoon]

I'd love to see the Hammer titles remastered. Bummer. Oh well... sounds like they have lots of other great titles in the works.


The initial pressing was faulty... but you can get a replacement directly from AB. I bought 2 copies at retail which locked up... when I exchanged it directly from AB it has worked fine ever since.

 

[Vincent_P]

:: Lustig is responsible for giving this treatment to cult/B-Movies but not IMO for "pioneering" it to begin with.

But Lustig isn't even responsible for pioneering special editions of cult/B-movies- that honor goes to Don May and Vinny Bancalari with their Elite laserdiscs of the 1990s (starting with their THX-certified LD special edition of Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD). Bancalari is still with Elite, but May left to start his own company, Synapse Films, which has their own catalog of great B/Cult/Independent DVD releases. IN FACT, Lustig got his start by collaborating WITH May and Bancalari at Elite, so if anything, he's been following in their footsteps. Lustig really hasn't "pioneered" anything at all, he's just been building on the work others have started.

Oh, and Drew, regarding this:

"I would disagree, though I suppose it is just my opinion. I said "one of the key... for much of the supplemental features we associate with", because a good number of the special editions carried on shelves at Target, Best Buy and other retail stores in more abundance than Criterion are the Anchor Bay releases that flooded the market between the late 90's and early 00's. I don't really believe that most of the "mainstream" market purchase that much Criterion..."

If anything, the earliest New Line DVDs were the true trend-setters when it came to "mainstream" DVD supplements aimed at "average" consumers*, and as far as I know, Bill Lustig had nothing to do with them.

Vincent

* IN FACT, during the first couple years of the DVD format, Anchor Bay had a TERRIBLE reputation, one of the worst in the business (remember their first release of HALLOWEEN?). If Lustig is responsible for one thing, it was turning AB around, since when he got actively involved with them, the quality of their DVDs increased dramatically, so we can all thank him for that, although they still had some major f**k ups during his tenure (MANHUNTER missing footage, the SUSPIRIA sound remix...), but the overall quality of their DVD releases certainly improved tenfold after he came on-board in 1999 or so.

 

[Kevin M]

I was going to bring this up too, he was never actually hired on at AB out right either, he was basically a well payed consultant with some fairly abundant film contacts over in europe as well as in north america and a good bit of experience in the running of second party video houses...if I remember correctly...

 

[Drew Reiber]

Perhaps the words I chose weren't the clearest to convey my perceptions, but I stand by my comments that a good number of the supplements that cult fandom are associated with today for DVD come from his work. Everyone I know/knew became addicted to the collector's market for cult product *through* Lustig's work. The kinds of material provided for by New Line or anyone else for that matter was either poor, or few and far between, as well as limited to their catalogue titles.

You guys don't have to agree with me, and I appreciate having input on what might be seen as something other than I intended. I don't know where "pioneering" came up, but you're reading far too much into a point I made and stand by. Being a college student, much of the DVD product on the market seems to be purchased by people in our age group, and judging from the more cult-driven fans or even the mainstream film fans in my classes, Anchor Bay and Lustig's work comes up more often than not. Just about everyone owns a copy of Army of Darkness.

So perhaps a better description would have been "supplements for cult films in the U.S. blah blah blah". Otherwise, it's really not that big of a deal to me and so I'm moving on from this argument about choice of wording for an introduction. If you've got anything else to talk about, I would love to continue those conversations. That's why I did the interview in the first place, to spark interest in subjects related to what's coming out.

 

[Anthony Thorne]

Blue Underground have at least three boxes in the works for next year - the Blind Dead box, the Castellari crime film pack and the second giallo collection - along with what should likely be a lot of other genre releases. (I know they have a few New Zealand titles coming, including THE QUIET EARTH). That's pretty remarkable, and even more so if they can do a similar range of boxes in 2006/2007. One of the things I enjoy about Blue Underground is their ability to get a lot of product out. Others can say what they like but I remember when Redemption UK announced TORSO in a couple of fanzines around 1994. A year or two later and it was still listed as 'coming soon', and it remained that way until Anchor Bay brought out their DVD of it and rendered a slightly-cut UK release moot. Elite did some nifty LD restorations back in the day but I don't think they ever brought titles out in such abundance as BU does now.

I guess the explanation for the above is that the DVD market is so much larger than the old LD one. I recall the original PHANTASM LD S.E came in a pressing of 5000 copies or so (and sold out nearly immediately). Lustig mentioned that BU wouldn't even look at a title unless they thought they could sell at least 10,000 copies. DEAD AND BURIED's run was 50,000 or thereabouts, and they sold close to 250,000 copies of THE FINAL COUNTDOWN. These sort of numbers (not exclusive to Blue Underground, obviously, but just reflective of some of the current market for genre films) must be part of what makes things like a restored 2-disc S.E of 99 WOMEN possible.

The Castellari crime box is a good start but I'd like to see more Eurocrime titles brought out, including those by Umberto Lenzi. Even with an emphasis on just the more violent and sleazy titles, there must be plenty of top films available. I also wish that BU would think about tackling some of the nastier Japanese Nikkatsu titles from the 70's. (I know there's an ANGEL GUTS box coming from another company in 2005, but anyone who's browsed the Weisser book on the topic will know how many more films of that sort are still sadly off the market). I'd enjoy it if they brought out some left-of-centre stuff like Sergio Martino's FOXY LADY and other sleazy 80's works. Finally, I hope that BU can sort out whatever issues remain with FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET, and that they maintain this sort of prolific release schedule - full of cult titles and rarities, with stacks of extras - for the next four or five years.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Lustig's real work for AB began when Jay Douglas asked for his help with the 1999 THX re-release of Halloween. Lustig shouldn't get much credit or discredit for the quality of the earlier AB releases, as I believe his relationship with them didn't go much beyond that of a licensor. Eventually, Lustig was a producer working for AB, however (although he was simultaneously acquiring licenses for Blue Underground).

DJ

 

[Kevin M]

So essentially he was a free agent (so to speak) who wasn't under any binding obligation to do work exclusively for AB? I wouldn't think he would want to be at least, considering the independent entrepreneurial spirit he has always had.


I'm sorry Drew but that's a fairly straight forward statement and not really open to interpretation, it is what it is. But even your explanation of what you meant is open for debate as we can see.....that's the spirit of forums I guess and at least we can debate this here in a reasonably adult manner without the trappings of TeenNet "debate"...you know.."Oh yeah, well u a stupid fkin dipsht and u don't know sht!"

..well..not if you want to keep posting here anyway.

 

[walter o]

quote:
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Lustig became one of the key producers responsible for much of the supplemental features we associate with the term "special edition" on home video.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the key word here is "home video". If you had said "DVD" then he would be "one of " the ones, BUT by saying "home video" that would include VHS and Beta and LD and CED. I wouldnt know what's the first SE VHS was, but criterion was the first real LD label to create and revolutionalize Special Edition in the LD market, in essence, what is known as S.E in the DVD market today. Without Criterion, or Voyager, there may never have been an idea of doing S.E in the home video market.

and Don May and Elite was the first to pioneer the idea of sublicensing cult titles to their own indie label in the LD days from other studios and making them special editions, similar to AB did.

 

[Anthony Thorne]

Do folks really care about this minor matter more than the actual films Blue Underground are scheduled to release? BU have a lot of great stuff due out, but it seems destined in this thread to take a back seat to quibbling over semantics. I'm off.

 

[Rolando]

Anthony Thorne, you've aroused my curiosity. where might I see this cover for Venus in furs?

 

[Kevin M]

Sorry you feel that way Anthony, but keep in mind that this is a thread linking to and discussing Drew's interview with Bill Lustig & not an exclusive discussion of what titles BU are releasing so I don't feel that constructive criticism/debate of his intro to that interview are exactly "bickering" or could even be considered "semantics" or off topic.

No one is attacking Drew at all (and I'm fairly sure that Drew didn't think so either), just debating his opinion of Bill's influence on DVD supplements.

Now if you really want me to discuss something else in that interview then I'll bring up something I said earlier, who else finds Bill's explanation for the missing audio on the Suspiria DVD to be a bit "dodgy"?

 

[Michael Elliott]

In my opinion, BU has already topped AB in terms of quality and extras. Whenever I knock Criterion I usually use BU as an example of great work WITH low prices. The one thing AB didn't have was guts in releasing some smaller, harder titles but BU has already done this and will continue to do so in 2005.

Does it really matter who started what? What really matters is the upcoming releasing and like Criterion, whenever there's a BU label on a disc we know it's going to be great.

 

[Drew Reiber]

I might get burned for saying this, but I would really like to see BU or AB do more of Argento's later films because most of his 90's titles are cut to ribbons. Sleepless, Phantom of the Opera, The Stendahl Syndrome, whichever... I would just like to see them as they were intended, mediocre or not. No filmmaker, especially Argento, deserves to see their work butchered and poorly presented like these are.

 

[Drew Reiber]

They're getting smarter about which titles to grab, but seem to be sticking to 70's and 80's English language cult classics for the most part (or TV shows). I'm willing to look past the mediocrity (in my opinion) of their current acquisitions though, because they'll soon be distributing original content under their Masters of Horror label.

As Media Blasters is doing that now, and Blue Underground plans to eventually move to production too, I would imagine that direct-to-video will be the leader in original genre content within the next several years. Those crappy theatrical labels like Ghost House Productions, Dark Castle Entertainment and Dimension Films sure aren't cutting it.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I really don't mind AB stepping away from what made them famous because they've released some great non-horror stuff like the Alec G. Collection, Peter S. Collection and the Herzog/Kinski stuff. They've also got the more mainstream titles, which leaves the rest for Synapse, SS and BU.

There are still thousands of other titles to be released and if the big three don't do it, I'm sure another label will step up and start delivering. Plus, as all horror fans know, region free is another plus. ABUK has stepped up the past couple of years but sadly they've had to cut a lot of their releases. Plus, those awful DTS and 5.1 tracks aren't helping matters.

For some reason Image has really cut their production with the exception of some Jess Franco titles. I believe 6 or 7 titles are due out next year starting with KILLER BARBYS VS DRACULA.

Either way, I think cult fans have a lot of great stuff coming from the studios and thankfully we usually get a great product. Hell, we got 100+ Franco's to be released plus countless Paul Naschy titles available.

SLEEPLESS will eventually be re-visited but not by AB or BU. Hopefully Troma will sell the rights to STENDHAL or there's a few other versions in R2 but I'm not sure which is the best.

 

[Mark Edward Heuck]

The "recent" crime film you mention I believe is LA SCORTA, or "The Bodyguards," a well-received drama about protecting a judge prosecuting mob bosses in Italy that got a stateside release by First Look in the '90's. I recall there being a "Sidney Lumet presents" headline above the title to draw attention to the film.

 

[Drew Reiber]

Who/when/where/how is Sleepless going to be revisited?

 

[Kevin M]

Sorry if the questions offended you Drew, they weren't meant to, and I still don't see that topic as mere semantics since it was pretty much directly related to the interview but obviously if the main focus of that discussion doesn't wish to continue with it then we won't.


So if future Blue Underground DVD releases are to be the sole topic then what are the chances (good I would think) of BU getting "back" the rights to other AB italian titles when the licences run out such as Demons - Demons 2 etc. since I would love to see proper 16:9 enhanced transfers of these and others. Tenebre & Phenomena being two of the more obvious ones as well.

 

[Damin J Toell]

It's a decent bet that all of the eurocult titles released on LDs produced by Lustig and distributed by Roan will have its rights revert back to Lustig. This has already happened with Zombie, and it would include all of the titles you mentioned.

DJ