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ONE MONTH TO THE BASE AWARDS…
…EVENT CLOSE TO SELLING OUT
HMV TALKS PHYSICAL MEDIA…
…AS ROUGH TRADE EYES MORE OPENINGS
ROMULUS KEEPS THE WOLVES FROM THE DOOR FOR DISNEY
UNDERDOG TAKES OVER THE EAST END
BROKEN BIRD FLIES OUT
…AS FRIGHTFEST KICKS OFF
SIGNATURE GETS MORE TERRIFYING
SASQUATCH SPOTTED IN STORES
WHO SAW A NEW RELEASE
POWERHOUSE GETS WILDER AND CRAZY
NEW FILM STORIES MAG AVAILABLE NOW
SPOTTED OUT AND ABOUT
TRAILERS OF THE WEEK
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It was a good week for… Alien: Romulus, the second most successful Alien opening ever, continuing Disney’s great run…
It was a bad week for… Fans of The Acolyte, Disney’s latest Star Wars offshoot, cancelled after one series, with storylines left hanging in the air…
We have been watching… FrightFest opener Broken Bird, a hugely inventive homegrown film, and we also caught Alien: Romulus, which, especially for the first 90 minutes, is huge fun…
The BASE Awards are now little more than a month away – August 28 will be exactly four weeks before the event takes place, on September 25, at the Roundhouse in London’s Camden. Not got your tickets yet? Wavering on whether to come along or not? Here’s BASE chief executive Liz Bales on why you should be attending. She told the Raygun ahead of the 44th Annual BASE Awards: ‘With one month to go until the awards the team are all hands on deck ensuring the night is everything that the industry expects of the BASE Awards, and more. We’ve got exciting new sponsors in the room, such as G-Spot, Gillian Anderson’s drinks company, and old friends like Twisted Time Machine providing the always beautiful and (often) outrageous entertainment, where even I don’t know what will happen. We do still have a couple of tables available to purchase which will take us to capacity, so I firmly encourage all those last-minute bookers to get their requests into Vicki to save those week/day/hour before ticket request disappointments! As usual I want to thank all our wonderful sponsors – without you, this celebration of UK Home Entertainment just would not happen. You are the reason these awards exist. And for anybody still considering sponsoring an award and playing your part – it’s never too late! Drop us a line and we’ll always be able to make something magical happen. And I’ll see all 600 of you on Wednesday September 25 at the Camden Roundhouse!’ BASE Awards.”
Last week we told you about the nominees for the inaugural BASE & DEGI Hedy Lamarr Inspirational Women in Entertainment: Rising Star Award. And we’ve been speaking to Liz Bales about this award too. She said: “The introduction of the two Hedy Lamarr BASE Awards has been a long time in the planning and I'm thrilled that we've been able to realise our ambitions for the BASE Awards 2024. The fact that the Rising Star winner will receive coaching from industry leader and respected coach Monica Chadha, and that all the shortlisted nominees will be awarded mentoring through the launch of the BASE Entertainment Mentoring and Leadership Group, is what makes the Rising Star award so special. That this cohort of senior industry colleagues are happy to gift their time to an initiative that is proven to make a difference is testament to our industry's ambitions to affect meaningful, demonstrable change. I can't wait to celebrate with all the Hedy Lamarr nominees and winners at the Roundhouse on September 25.” Just a reminder, as noted here last week, the nominees are: Johanna Beaven, junior marketing manager, NBCUniversal; Sophie Fawcett, junior marketing manager, Lionsgate UK; Persia Humphreys, trade marketing executive, Elevation Sales; Jocelyn Liu, Senior Sales Manager, BBC Studios; Maria Marcolini, marketing manager, EMEA Paramount and Esme Pitts, commercial manager, SKY. Tickets are available from here…
 hmv chief Phil Halliday has been talking about physical media and the retailer’s resurgence again this week, this time in an interview with Music Week. As you’d expect, much of it centres on vinyl and the audio side of the business, but there are, as ever, some strong snippets and bits in there for Raygun readers too. Here’s a few selections: “Since opening [in Oxford Street, London] in November, music has performed significantly above expectations each quarter. Q2 was no exception, driven by hmv’s Vinyl Week, as well as the sales and footfall generated across Taylor Swift’s catalogue during her UK tour dates and, of course, the release of The Tortured Poets Department in April. We’re always looking to expand the business and will continue to do so in the UK where it makes sense to. This goes for both hmv and Fopp. Most recently, we opened up a new Fopp store in Nottingham… We’ve always been big believers in physical retail – it has something over and above what you can get online, whether that’s recommendations from staff who are experts in the field or discovering a new artist or genre whilst browsing in store. However, seeing this belief translate into real time growth has been very exciting, and we expect a strong end to the year in terms of both sales and footfall across our stores… Some of the growth in vinyl this past year came from classic artists’ releases but more and more we’re seeing contemporary artists like Harry Styles and Taylor Swift releasing new material in the vinyl format, driving sales both in-store and online. Our stores draw in fans from a range of different ages and generations, owing to the fact that our expansive catalogue has something for everyone – whether that be K-Pop or merch and memorabilia from classic films like Star Wars.” You can see more here and while you’re about it, you might want to have a quick look here as Rough Trade has further signified entertainment retail’s bright future, as the company said it is looking at further openings, including more in the capital. It opened in Liverpool this year, adding to sites in London, where it has three, Bristol and Nottingham and overseas in cities such as Berlin. Rough Trade md Lawrence Montgomery said: “We always keep an eye on opportunities in the UK but we are respectful to the great indie stores around the country, so we are very specific when looking at opportunities. We are assessing a couple opportunities in London, where we have a strong team and operational set-up, and also growing other parts of business such as third party sales channels and vintage vinyl. We are selling more than double the number of records and CDs so far in 2024 than we did five years ago,” said Montgomery. “As long as labels and artists continue to value the role independent record shops like ourselves offer, we believe this growth can continue.”
Disney was celebrating once more this week as the studio continued its dominance of the spring and summer box office cycle after the release of the latest in the ongoing Alien saga, Alien: Romulus. The film’s opening weekend saw it take £3.74 million at UK cinemas, making it the second biggest debut in the long-running series’ history. Over in the US its opening weekend brought in more than $41 million at the box office, with a worldwide haul of more than $100 million. It means for the fourth month running, Disney is ruling the box office, with May (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), June (Inside Out 2), July (Deadpool & Wolverine) and now August seeing it win out. All this comes off the back of a difficult few years for the studio, at least in terms of press criticism. Those once questioning the studio’s might, with missteps both from its own stable and titles that it took on when it bought Fox, as well as highlighting streaming woes, are now singing its praises. This piece on Variety sums that up, with Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations noting: “The rocky transition period has finally passed and Disney is now successfully integrating 20th Century Fox assets in a way that is more organic to Walt Disney Studios. By that, I mean they’ve capitalised on IP and event films — something Disney does very well.” David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research, added: “It’s impossible to put a number on it, but after Avatar, Planet of the Apes, and now Alien, I would be surprised if they weren’t feeling very good about the acquisition.”
 To the Genesis Cinema in London’s East End for the premiere of Underdog, subtitled The Andy Swallow Story, a documentary charting the life and times of the founder of West Ham’s notorious Inter City Firm of football who went from scrapping at Upton Park and around the country to being a thorn in the side of authorities during the acid house boom, hosting scores of parties and launching pirate radio giant Centreforce, now a successful DAB station, as well as running a hit record label under the auspices of Pete Waterman, Simon Cowell and more. The film is made by distributor turned production powerhouse Revelation Films, run by industry stalwarts Tony Carne and Trevor Drane. Oh, and as well as a cast of West Ham fans, the film also features The Raygun’s very own Tim Murray, alongside the better-known, better writer Irvine Welsh, as a talking head adding a bit of context from his days on local newspapers in the East End and on the fringes of the acid house scene. The film itself went down a storm with a sell-out, packed auditorium. It will be released on digital on 23rd September and will be available from all the major DTV/DTO platforms. It’s a hugely commercial proposition, set to go down a storm with the Rise Of The Footsoldier audience and well beyond too, touching on terrace culture, acid house and other shenanigans from a bygone era. Comment came from Revelation’s Trevor Drane who said: “Andy's story has such range it has been hard to fit in to the documentary feature format. His influence reaches right across the world in terrace culture, music, raves and radio he has been a prime mover in all these street culture areas, Andy himself is as if he was drawn straight out of Dickens such is the richness of his character. The film's subplot is very much about being working class and as such should resonate with many many people who have never heard of him both here and worldwide. It’s the sort of story C4 did so well back in that day but along with nearly all broadcasters have abandoned, this a subject the screen writer James Graham covered only this week in his MacTaggart lecture at the international TV festival in Edinburgh and he's 100 per cent on the money. It's taken us over a decade to make this film, we found no willing partners in broadcast or film distribution so we've gone with solo with a world wide digital release via Spirit.” To the St Martin’s Hotel in Covent Garden, a stone’s throw from Leicester Square, where the great and the good of the horror world were out in force to celebrate the opening film for this year’s FrightFest, Broken Bird. The homegrown horror went down a storm with the audience at the annual horror-thon, sponsored again this year by Pigeon Shrine and early reviews were good too. It earned itself a five-star notice from website Love Horror, which said: “Broken Bird is one of the most impressive horror films of the year, with a remarkable central performance from Rebecca Calder and excellent supporting work from Sacharissa Claxton and James Fleet. I’m still thinking about it and I’m sure it won’t leave my thoughts for some time. It’s funny, it’s shocking, it’s tear jerking. It’s brilliant.” The film is due at cinemas in the UK on August 30, before home entertainment further down the line and it gets a strong recommend from us at The Raygun. Director Joanne Mitchell said: “It was incredible to wake up to the positive reviews for a film I feel so passionate about. FrightFest is the king and queen of the genre festivals and its support for Broken Bird and all involved has been invaluable. I’m so proud of my cast, crew and whole production team.”
Speaking of FrightFest – and we’ll have more from the event next time on the newsletter – but it’s interesting to note that this year’s bumper programme (it’s bigger both in terms of size and pagination) is a special one to mark the 25th anniversary of the event. And it’s interesting to note just how much the horror community is in to home entertaining and physical media, at least judging by the number of ads for related product in the publication. Ads from distributors and studios included Warner (A Nightmare On Elm Street 40th anniversary edition); Studiocanal (one for Sting with pack shots for Baghead, The Wicker Man and Evil Dead Rise at the bottom and a separate page for Cult Classics); two from 4Digital Media (a page apiece for God Of Pain and The Jack In The Box Rises); the BFI (Die Monster Die! And The Oblong Box) and one for The First Omen (Fox via Elevation). It makes up more than half the ads in the publication, showing the popularity of home entertainment among genre fans. Looking back over 25 years of FrightFest, Gibbs-McNeil said: “It’s mad to think that this is my 24th year working with FrightFest. It truly has been one of my proudest career moment being part of this incredible festival. FrightFest isn’t just a job to me, its become a part of who I am now. Everyone involved (the fans included) are not just my work mates. They’re my family.”
 Sticking with FrightFest, and attendees over the bank holiday weekend for the five-day event will be treated to, at various times between films, trailers for a raft of forthcoming activity surrounding splatter franchise Terrifier from Signature. It has made its name as a home entertainment option for the first two films in the series, but with Terrifier 3 due at cinemas on October 11, Signature is preparing itself for a raft of activity based around Damian Leone’s films in the run-up. This will see not just drafting activity for the home entertainment releases of the first two films featuring Art the Clown alongside buckets of blood, but also a special one-night-only theatrical screening of both at cinemas on September 27. As noted here previously, the series has been a huge seller across digital and physical formats, with demand for the latter outstripping reply leading to fans prepared to pay big money the box set of Terrifier and Terrifier 2 on auction sites. As Signature’a Cliff Green told The Raygun’s Tim Murray for a story in the ever-wonderful Film Stories magazine: “Art the Clown made headlines worldwide as the US reported audiences being grossed out to the point of fainting in the foyers. Our team harnessed the viral momentum and pivoted on our PR and social strategy to ensure UK news outlets were also running with the story ahead of our home entertainment release across digital and physical. The Blu-ray of both Terrifier 2 and the box set proving to be incredibly strong as they sold out time and again in the run up to Christmas.” Frightfest will be showing trailers for both the double theatrical bill and the third outing, at the same time as launching a website offering pre-bookings. Commenting on the forthcoming activity for Terrifier, Signature’s Cliff Green said: “We're all very excited to carry on bringing the Terrifier franchise to the UK. There are a lot of fans within the company even those who are grossed having seen the first two films. We've already seen the opportunities with our exhibition partners opening up for not just our one night only double bill for Terrifier and Terrifier 2 on September 27 but also the saturation release of Terrifier 3 on October 11. Fans can expect to see a wider theatrical marketing and publicity campaign along with exclusive content created by the Signature UK marketing team. As we firm up plans, we expect the momentum to build as people begin to see the film, they'll realise that things get better and better as the franchise grows and goes on.Terrifier has had over a billion views on TikTok hashtags so far since the launch of Terrifier 2. We always knew that the franchise fans lived across social media, and this is where we'll continue to focus our efforts by engaging with the public and making sure we are with them every step of the way.”
Out and in stores in Monday August 29 is the latest from Icon with the home entertainment bow of Sasquatch Sunset, one of the year’s most talked about films, which arrives on digital and Blu-ray with a wealth of extras – boasting more than three hours of additional material. Comment on the release came from Spencer Pollard, who said: “We’ve enjoyed the full release of Sasquatch Sunset from watching it in a snowy Sundance in January through to it coming out on Blu Ray on Monday. A one of a kind film that certainly leaves you (and the cast) speechless we hope fans have enjoyed it on the big and now smaller screen!”
 Monday’s releases also include the latest from Shameless, with a release of a prime slice of Italian giallo in the shape of Who Saw Her Die. The first UK Blu-ray for the Aldo Lado 1972 Italian tale is made all the more timely given its star George Lazenby recently returned to the headlines after announcing his retirement from acting. The film, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Don’t Look Now, which came a year after Who Saw Her Die’s release, has been given the usual Shameless treatment, as outlined by the company’s Garwen Spencer Davison. He said: “We’ve already had very positive response so far and there has been unanimous praise for the new artwork we've commissioned for the sleeve. Looking at previous releases and those in other territories, it really does appear that it's the very first time the film’s artwork and presentation has been completely re-conceived and we too reckon that it looks very good, both new and spot-on. I think Aldo Lado has been overlooked and underrated but there is now a rising worldwide reassessment of the late director Aldo Lado as the superlative cinematic craftsman that he was. And we’re showing him in his best light with this gorgeous new encode from 2K restoration! The film has never looked better, depicting an out-of-season Venice shrouded in fog framing the torment and grief of George Lazenby’s character. It’s probably Lazenby’s finest acting. The film is accompanied by an eerie score from the one-and-only Morricone. It all contributes to showcase the giallo genre at its most chilling and captivating. On the disc are several very good extras including, among others, two featuring the Aldo Lado. The now established new-look Shameless Limited Editions come with the black-motif o-card displaying the new exclusive artwork we commissioned for it.” The Indicator series from Powerhouse has never shied away from titles thought outside of the remit of boutique labels, but it has given an air of credibility, respectability and kudos to older, commercial fare and its latest announcement, for its November slate, is a further case in point. For in a lavish boxset, it has pulled together a trio of classic 1980s titles starring comedy pals Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. The three, Stir Crazy, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Another You, feature in the set, Pryor & Wilder 1980-1991, alongside a wealth of extras, including new additional material as well as commentaries and a 100-page book with new and archival features and essays. All will help place the film in context and add new depth to the comedies, alongside, of course, the chance to watch and rewatch one of the greatest comedic movie lines ever, “fuzzy fuzzy was a woman?” In gorgeous high definition. Powerhouse’s Sam Dunn said: “We're over the moon to be releasing these timeless comedy classics. Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are both giants of their craft, and the work that they did individually stands as some of the most important in the realms of cinema and stand-up. However, the films which they made together have an truly alchemical quality, resulting in pure comedy gold. Many of us have favoured and savoured lines and set-pieces from these films, so it's with great excitement that we're putting this fantastic set together. As ever, our edition will include an array of newly recorded commentaries, interviews, and critical appreciations, as well as a 100-page book."
And before we go, a quick plug our pals over at Film Stories, who’ve just published their 51st issue, available at select newsagents (the big travel ones at stations mainly), as well as from here. As well as featuring Alice Lowe on the cover and, as ever, eschewing the obvious franchises and production line Hollywood blockbusters, it looks at British films, indie movies and less obvious choices. Proudly boasting of its status as Britain’s biggest film magazine, it also features The Raygun’s Tim Murray writing about physical media, with a series of reviews of current big Blu-ray releases, as well as features on Studiocanal’s release of The Conversation and a big feature on how the WWE (and WWF before it) became a huge hit on video in the UK… As ever, we’re proud to be involved with it and it’s well worth reading z- and supporting. We’re currently working on the next issue, get in touch with Tim Murray at the usual address to talk about reviews, interviews, features and more…
This point of sale for Warner’s forthcoming Beetlejuice sequel we came across in our local Picturehouse in Finsbury Park, north London. Made entirely of cardboard, it’s hugely impressive and provides loads of Instagram opportunities too…
 TRAILERS OF THE WEEK
`that FrightFest opener…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y29zUsON-gA Due on digital via The Movie Partnership in September…
Dark comedy from Signature…
This week’s A24 trailer…
New trailer for anniversary edition…
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