One
of the most anticipated re-releases of a 70mm film in recent times will
happen in March next year when Stanley Kubrick's
"2OO1: A Space
Odyssey"
will hit 70mm screens in key markets around the world. The
international release of the film begins in selected cinemas in London on
March 7th.
"2001:
A Space Odyssey" will be "previewed" a bit earlier on
February 18, 2001 as the closing event at the Berlin Film festival. There
will be new 35mm and 70mm prints available. "35mm prints will most
likely carry all 3 major digital formats", Leon Vitali comments,
"and we haven't decided about the 70mm prints yet. There are still a
couple of plants that apply magnetic striping", he continues. The
obvious choice for 70mm digital sound would of course be to go with
70mm DTS, but that decision has not yet been made.
"2001:
A Space Odyssey" is scheduled to open England, Italy, Germany,
Australia and Japan but is expected to open in even more countries. Probably
in July 2001, the classic movie will also open in North America. "There
is a huge interest in showing this film again", says Leon Vitali from
his Burbank office. When asked about any difficulties in finding suitable
70mm theatres, Vitali denies that to be a problem.
The
soundtrack is currently undergoing some re-working to eliminate high-end
distortion and tape hiss which have been in "2001: A Space
Odyssey"'s soundtrack since the original release (April 2, 1968).
Initial work has been done by Chris Jenkins at Todd-AO in Hollywood.
"We did a 5.1 mix in 1995", Leon Vitali explains, "but we did
not remove the hiss and distortion at that point, but we are doing that
now". Recording stocks have improved considerably since 1968 and
Stanley Kubrick's original 2-track stereo master is now being faithfully
reproduced into a state-of-the-art 5.1 master. "One of the beauties of
"2001: A Space Odyssey" is the complete silence of space, and we
are now able to simulate that even better since the tape hiss is completely
gone."
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Further in 70mm reading:
Stanley Kubrick's
"2OO1: A Space Odyssey" in Super Panavision 70
Warner Bros.
Pictures Celebrates 50 Years of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space
Odyssey"
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
credits
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