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MORE CENTENARY WISHES FOR HMV
"HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY…"
WARNER SEES "TREMENDOUS RESULTS" AT RETAILER GROCER GIVES ROOM TO CLOTHING, HOMEWARES
BASE AWARDS SLATED FOR NOV 18
WONDER YEAR SO FAR FOR MAJOR
POTTER GOLD
ARROW LANDS NEW TARGET
PROMISING NEW RELEASE
LIONSGATE'S ON THE MONAE
NUN'S ON THE RUN
REDEMPTION STREAMING SLEAZE
MISSING FOUND ON BLU-RAY
SIGHT FOR SORE EYES
AT THE MOVIES
TWEET OF THE WEEK
TRAILERS OF THE WEEK
Last week we talked at length about hmv and the retailer’s centenary and we’ll kick off this week’s newsletter with more birthday wishes and congratulatory messages from across the industry, with a few big distributors joining those we ran last week, as the celebrations continue for one of the country's longest-standing high street fixtures, not just in the entertainment sector, but beyond. BASE representatives were among those offering up their words to the retailer. BASE chair and Sony Pictures vp commercial for home entertainment Rob Marsh said: “Seeing the huge amounts of warmth and celebration the hmv 100th Anniversary has created is testament to the regard in which the business is held by customers, supplier partners and competitors. hmv is a true retail success story that has coupled a strong, single minded brand with that most important ingredient of all – excellent people. I have many fond memories of hmv over the years, but the strongest of all was when I was fortunate to join the hmv stores and head office team at dinner in 2019. The management team were presenting awards which the store managers and head office staff were collecting and I was humbled to see grown men and women in tears (of joy) as their hard work and effort was recognised. This showed the true passion for the business which this team has and it was inspiring to witness. I wish all of the hmv team the best of wishes and biggest congratulations for their 100th Anniversary.”
More BASE congratulations came from co-vice chair of the organisation, and home entertainment director at BBC Studios Lesley Johnson added: “Wishing all of the hardworking teams at hmv a very happy 100th birthday! What a journey it has been since 2019! No one could have predicted the challenges of the last year, but it’s truly brilliant for the entire industry that hmv is here and in robust form to celebrate this milestone.”
Warner has also paid tribute to hmv’s work and longevity in the market, with Sima Westley, executive director, sales and customer marketing WBUK, saying: “All of us here at Warner Bros wish hmv a very happy and prosperous Centenary - what an incredible landmark – huge congratulations. hmv has always led the way with unrivalled and in depth product knowledge, offering fans of all ages a true sense of community where ‘like-minds’ can share their passion and excitement across all genres and interests. Working together, we have firmly established the DC brand at hmv continuing to keep fans engaged and hungry for more. We have seen tremendous results with Wonder Woman 1984 and Zack Snyder’s Justice League exclusive Steelbooks. Not to mention, the excitement and theatre we have created together for some of our biggest franchises such as Game of Thrones, The Wizarding World and James Bond. With the theatrical slate back in full swing, I look forward to all the great things we can achieve together in the second half of 2021 and into 2022. Your passion is unmatched, here’s to another 100 years.”
Further congratulations came from another long-standing company, supplier Lasgo, and its md Garry Elwood – himself an industry veteran, said: “Lasgo can probably claim to be the oldest (or one of the oldest) suppliers to hmv, we kicked off in 1978 – 43 years., (My personal relationship goes back to the ‘Wells brothers’ who managed the hmv Oxford Street stores and I re)member arranging window huge displays for The Empire Strikes Back in my days at CBS/Fox. Through all of its owners, hmv has always been a valued customer of Lasgo. Doug Putman’s faith and commitment to the physical market is such a positive stance and is one that we support 100 per cent. As well as the traditional ranges of DVD/Blu-ray, CD and vinyl, we work closely with the hmv team to expand their offerings into Crosley turntables, licensed Rocksax bags and all sorts of film and music associated merchandise and CE. The whole Lasgo team wish hmv a happy 100th birthday.”
Please feel free to send any more birthday wishes to us as the usual email address…
Meanwhile, sticking with BASE, and the organisation has confirmed a new date for its awards this year, with the date now set for November 18 to allow for more recovery from the worst effects of the pandemic, more vaccinations and more safety at the event. The official statement from the association said: “With the Government’s latest change to the lockdown roadmap, the BASE Awards are officially moving to Thursday November 18 at Camden Roundhouse. BASE will continue to monitor Covid safety guidelines and viability for the new date, but with Awards judging taking place in July, winners will be celebrated in November if not before, no matter the format.”
And further news from BASE – and big news for Warner too – as the best sellers for the first half of the year have been announced in conjunction with the Official Charts Company and the weekly Official Film Chart. And it's been a great 2021 for Warner, scooping the top slot as the biggest seller of the first half of the year across physical and digital formats with Wonder Woman 1984, which shifted 216,000 units, of which two thirds came from the physical release and a the rest from digital download. Warner had the second and third bestsellers too in the shape of Zack Snyder's Justice League and Godzilla Vs Kong, with only 1,600 units separating the too. Its strong 2021 was further aided by the success of Tenet, at number five, with other top 10 placements for Roald Dahl’s The Witches, Joker, Bill & Ted Face The Music and Godzilla King Of Monsters, meaning it had four-fifths of the top 10. The only non-Warner releases in the 10 were older titles, SPHE’s Spider-Man Far From Home and The Greatest Showman, the latter having continued its record-breaking run in recent years.
While we're on the charts, this week's Official Film Chart sees Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in the top two slots, with Peter Rabbit 2 at number one and a box set featuring both of the Beatrix Potter adaptations just behind it. The next highest new entry was at number four, as Arrow VIdeo’s all-singing, all-dancing take on the classic True Romance, rode into town once more.
News from Arrow Video (we’ll have its latest raft of announcements on next week’s newsletter), as the company has announced that long-standing Manga staffer Jerome Mazandarani has joined the company to head up marketing. Commenting on his arrival, Arrow’s Alex Agran said: “Jerome joins the company at a critical juncture as we are developing our overall consumer proposition with a brand new B2C website in both the UK and US as well as a heavyweight brand and content investment into our subscription services ARROW( https://www.arrow-player.com/) in both territories as well. Jerome's experience across the industry is phenomenal having run the Manga label so successfully for so many years both as an independent and under the Funimation parent company. I am hugely excited to have Jerome on the team as a highly respected and creative industry veteran who has already brought bundles of ideas and energy to the business in just a few weeks. I just now need to pronounce his surname correctly…”
Already making a showing in the Official Film Charts on the strength of its digital release is Universal’s Promising Young Woman, the Oscar-winning tale of revenge starring Carey Mulligan in this acclaimed film. Commenting on the release, the company’s Stephanie Don said: “We’re delighted to be releasing Promising Young Woman on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday, off the back of a stellar awards run which saw it take home an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and BAFTA for Outstanding British Film. With a standout cast led by Carey Mulligan, important and timely themes and huge acclaim, Promising Young Woman is one of the must-own films of the year, and we’re supporting the release with an unmissable campaign across digital and social channels along with extensive PR support including influencer activations and podcast promotions.”
Also due in stores on Monday is another biggie, this time Lionsgate’s Antebellum, starring Janelle Monae and boasting a wealth of home entertainment pedigree, as junior product manager Katy Machin outlined. She said: “We are very excited to finally bring Antebellum to the UK market. From the producer of Get Out and Us, Antebellum stars Janelle Monáe as a woman who finds herself trapped in a terrifying reality and must uncover the brutal truth before it’s too late…We are supporting the title with a targeted publicity campaign to engage fans of the cast and filmmakers and reignite the excitement for this tense and provocative thriller with a terrifying twist.”
Due in stores on Monday from our pals at 88 Films is another slice of classic genre fare form a bygone era as the company brings The Nun And The Devil to market, with the presentation featuring the requisite sumptuous packaging for this slice of seminal nunsploitation, and a gorgeous booklet, this one with some words penned by The Raygun’s very own Tim Murray (available for bookings and commissions at the usual address etc). Forthcoming titles utilising his industry knowledge and journalism experience will be arriving with booklets for forthcoming titles The Story of Ricky and Robotrix, both due on September 27. So what else from 88 Films then? We caught up with the company’s Richard Elliott who said: “We are extremely please with our Deluxe Collector's Edition releases that we started with The Young Master and now include Zombie 5, so Sweet so Perverse, Erotic Ghost Story, Violent Professionals and the aforementioned Nun and the Devil. These all include rigid slips, perfect bound books, posters and post cards and we are rolling out this successful limited edition format for most of our upcoming releases including the Italian Crime classic The Tough Ones, the Bava-directed Giallo Hatchet For the Honeymoon and the epic 4K remastered Jackie Chan actioner, Armour of God for which we are especially excited.”
The Raygun’s Tim Murray interviewed industry legend Nigel Wingrove, the only man to have a film refused classification by the BBFC on the grounds of blasphemy, and long a bete noire of the board – about nunsploitation for the aforementioned Nun And The Devil release, and it was good to update about what he and his Redemption group are up to. He’s still releasing DVDs in the UK and the US, with assorted licensing deals for some of the catalogue and library he has amassed over the years (the Jean Rollin films are currently on Arrow’s streaming service) among other things. And it’s good to hear that Wingrove has launched his own streaming service at redemptiontv.net, offering all the kind of fare that he has made Redemption, Salvation and the other arms’ names on. “By the end of this year, we'll have 200 or more films on there,” he said. “We’ve got horror and exploitation, Japanese stuff as well as we’re starting to have unique content as well. We’re still doing what we’re good at as well – releasing DVDs – and it’s good to see that sales are picking up again.” Oh, and Visions Of Ecstasy, the film that caused so much controversy with the powers that be, is now on the BFI Player. “It’s doing very well on there, it’s normally in the top 10,’ he laughed.
 On the forthcoming titles side, Eureka has announced a raft of titles due for release in October, and, as ever, the company’s national accounts manager Marcus Garwood, has talked us through the line-up, saying: “Like a well-planned Halloween jump scare we creep up on you this October silently before unleashing an explosion of thrills and action. Following the success of our Vol 1 Early Universal silent film set, we follow up this October with Early Universal Vol 2. The set contains another three early silent features from Universal Pictures, all fully restored as part of the studio’s ongoing restoration program. Films included in Vol 2 are 1916’s classic aquatic adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1925’s Romantic Western The Calgary Stampede and 1926’s Comedy What Happened to Jones? starring Reginald Denny (Cat Ballou, Rebecca) Multi award-winning Hong Kong Director Ringo Lam (Wild Search, City On Fire) is up next as we proudly present one of his late career highlight’s with 1997’s taut action crime thriller Full Alert. Starring multi award-winning actor Lau Ching-wan (Mad Detective, Black Mask) the film includes some heart-stopping car chases on the streets of Hong Kong as Inspector Pao (played by Lau Ching-wan) goes up against seasoned criminal Mak Kwan (played by Francis Ng, The Mission) in a race against time to foil a dangerous heist and prevent heavy civilian casualties.”
Continuing with the October releases from Eureka, and the company’s Marcus Garwood said: “The October action continues with The Sabata Trilogy. This special release brings together all three iconic spaghetti westerns by Italian writer and director Gianfranco Parolini into one explosive 3-disc Blu-ray set. The set will come encased in a limited edition O-card slipcase; inside there will be a limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Western expert Howard Hughes and a reversible sleeve featuring original poster artwork for each film. To finish up this roundup we also have upfront news about one of our forthcoming November releases which is, quite frankly, just too good not to mention early and set those pre order opportunities in motion. Entitled Cinematic Vengeance! it’s a sumptuous set which brings together no less than eight Kung Fu classics from acclaimed Taiwanese director Joseph Kuo. All eight films in this set are making their worldwide debuts on Blu-ray and add up to well over 700 minutes of essential martial arts runtime. This will be a limited edition set including newly commissioned artwork by Darren Wheeling, 60-page booklet featuring new writing on the films included in the set by James Oliver, illustrated with archival imagery and materials, plus a set of eight facsimile lobby cards. Make no mistake this will be a highly desirable item this Q4 and will delight any fans of the genre." The BFI has announced a brace of September, due on the 27th, titles, including a second volume of British Transport Films, as well as a Powell and Pressburger classic given the full BFI treatment in the shoe of One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing. Producer Alex Prideaux said: "The BFI is delighted to be bringing such a classic of British cinema to Blu-ray. Packaged with contextualising archive content and new contributions from leading film scholars, the release offers a perfect opportunity for audiences to rediscover and revaluate this landmark title in the Powell and Pressburger canon.”
And we’ll end with news from the UK’s oldest film magazine, Sight & Sound, which this week unveiled a new look and a new direction under recently appointed editor Mike Williams. Boasting a raft of big names involved (as Williams noted in the online presentation of the new look, many of them contributed without even having a film to promote, such is their love of the magazine), new columnists such as Jonathan Ross and more than 30 pages of reviews (including home entertainment alongside theatrical and ubiquitous streaming titles), it goes on sale this week and, we reckon, is always worth our industry’s support. Williams deserves plaudits for his backing of the importance of physical media in the shape of magazines (they offer lifelines to people cut off geographically and culturally from film, he said) and, in a statement after the presentation, he said: “I’m incredibly proud to launch this revamped and reinvigorated Sight and Sound at such a key moment for film. For almost 90 years Sight and Sound has been a place for independent critical thought, and this new-look magazine builds on that legacy. We support a wide range of opinions, give a platform to a diverse range of voices and we explore a broader idea of screen culture than we have in the past, but our identity remains rooted in our belief in the power of cinema. Magazines are an important part of our culture, they’re lifelines, and this new magazine sits in the middle of an expanding cross-platform world that will ensure that film-lovers around the world can access us however they like, whenever they like for years to come. Long live cinema, long live Sight and Sound.”
The Exorcist is one of those franchises that refuses to die, although sequels and assorted offshoots have not necessarily always worked. But better things are expected– not least by Universal – for the new iteration of the God-bothering demons and the Devil himself with the announcement this week of a new film. Or rather three films, for the studio has been possessed (geddit?) with the idea of a new trio of films featuring the characters and even cast from the original film. The series is under the helm of David Gordon Green, who’s worked wonders with Universal for the Halloween franchise and is said to be looking at a similar concept of continuation of the story from the original rather than the reboot/remake route. Ellen Burstyn, who starred as the mother of the possessed girl famously played by Linda Blair, will also return…
Also set to return is Leslie Charteris’ finest creation, The Saint. The character, famously brought to life by Roger Moore in the 60s TV sries, then again in the 70s, and, later, by Val Kilmer on the big screen, is due a revival and Bridgerton breakout star Rege-Jean Page, is set to appear as Simon Templar (also immortalised in a Splodgenessabounds song, daft punk fans). Kwame Kwei-Armah is penning the script and the reboot has long been on the cards, although Chris Pine will no longer star; whether originally intended director Dexter Fletcher will still be on board is unclear.
More revival news, and there’s another often much-maligned film due a revival, and this one is Waterworld. The Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper starrer bombed upon original release, although many, including some at Arrow Video, who brought the film under its banner a few years ago, still swear by it. Seems the film is being eyed for a TV series, which may, or may not, appear on the Universal-backed Peacock streaming service in the US. It may, however, sink without trace…
TWEET OF THE WEEK
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TRAILERS OF THE WEEK
It’s Gucci time…
They’re back…
This is on the, er, cards…
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