“Night of the Living Dead” to Be Released in Color and 3D

[Petey Wheatstraw]

According to the Business Wire:

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--"Night of the Living Dead" is getting a unique dimensional twist that promises to pull viewers closer to the undead action. The team of Legend Films and PassmoreLab is bringing new life to the undead by converting the previously colorized genre-defining zombie film into jaw-dropping 3D. The enhanced 1968 George Romero cult classic is slated for release on April 1, 2009.

This updated 3D version of "Night of the Living Dead" will preserve the original vision of the film and its memorable story and characters while going several steps further and brings new meaning to the memorable line, "They're coming to get you!" The audience will no longer feel safely isolated from the undead; they'll feel as though they actually are part of the experience and are trapped by protagonists, Ben and Barbara, in the farm house as the zombies close in for the kill.

While "Night of the Living Dead" wasn't the first zombie film ever made, it's certainly the film that introduced the zombie archetype to the horror genre. The independent movie defied the odds when it was released in black and white, grossing over $30 million internationally. Four decades later the film is going strong as a popular cult classic and a staple of any scary movie marathon. "Night of the Living Dead" has a huge fan base and has inspired a number of sequels and spin-offs of the original film.

"'Night of the Living Dead' is a great cult film and conversion into 3D is a certain crowd pleaser," commented Greg Passmore, PassmoreLab's President. "It is looking really awesome. Legend did a beautiful job on color and the 3D conversion we are now teaming up to produce is downright zombie popping," he concluded.

This conversion project is intended to produce a fun and energetic film release that will no doubt become a Halloween favorite for zombie fans both young and old. Those who are already fans of this cult classic will enjoy this new twist on an old favorite while new viewers can experience the undead action for the first time in vivid color and 3D, complete with re-mastered sound.

"Using the most advanced, proprietary technology, 'Night of the Living Dead' will be the world's first full-live action feature film to be converted from 2D to 3D," explained Barry Sandrew, Ph.D., Legend Films' Founder and President. "The eight-year relationship between Legend Films and PassmoreLab has evolved into a powerful technology and production partnership poised to capture a significant portion of the burgeoning 3D conversion market."

The 3D film will be released by Legend in Europe theatrically and in the United States in a limited theatrical release. It will also be released on DVD and as a downloadable version available on Rifftrax.com. The downloadable version will include hilarious RiffTrax commentary by former Mystery Science Theater 3000 stars Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy.

About Legend Films, Inc.

Legend Films, Inc. (www.legendfilms.com) was founded in August 2001 in San Diego. The studio specializes in restoring and colorizing classic films for DVD, HDTV and theatrical release as well as performing color effects work for major studios and film makers. With a design studio in San Diego and production studio in India, Legend Films has restored and colorized over 120 feature films in the past five years and has now adapted their time and quality proven colorization masking process for full feature film 3D conversion.

About PassmoreLab

PassmoreLab (www.passmorelab.com) started in San Diego, California, in 2003. The company's staff is composed of programmers and scientific engineers, and also includes graphic artists, stereographers, videographers, a musical composer and even a biologist. PassmoreLab facilities include a full live action studio, video/film post-production, an optical development lab, and a software development environment. PassmoreLab is a firm with staff around the world, offices in San Diego, Russia and the Philippines and is now focused on producing the most advanced 3D conversion technology in the industry.

Hopefully, this will be a new colorized version, from a better print. The 2004 colorized version used a print that wasn't as good as the sources Legend usually gets for their releases, so it wasn't nearly as impressive as, say, Reefer Madness or Plan 9 from Outer Space.

[Bob]

Wow, missed reading that.

Thanks for passing it on................. already marked my calendar.

[Rude]

...

God, when i saw this thread i thought you were going to be talking about this abomination:



Anyway, Legend always does a great job colorizing old films. And as long as they take the time to offer a restored B&W version as well, i think it should be awesome. Although cheap, home-video 3D has never looked good. The old red-green effect hardly looks good in a theater, let alone on a TV screen. But I guess we'll see how PassmoreLab does with it.

-Rude

[Petey Wheatstraw]

The fact that the topic reads "in color" and the thread itself was posted in the RiffTrax Announcements thread should have been a dead giveaway.

Before Legend made the announcement about Night, Richard P. Rubinstein was trying to do the same with Dawn but I haven't heard about that recently. Since Night is actually coming out in April, I guess Legend beat him to it, which is why Mr. Sandrew mentions this being the first live-action film to be converted to 3-D.

[torgosPizza]

Just FYI the old red-blue 3D system is going bye-bye. There isn't a lot of content out there yet to take advantage of the new 3D systems available (such as the one that is present in recent DLP TVs) but once the cost of the glasses and other hardware comes down, it'll be more abundant.

Also I think the colorization isn't getting redone, just the 3D is getting added. So the source will be the same as what is on the current DVD.

[torgosPizza]

...

God, when i saw this thread i thought you were going to be talking about this abomination:



Anyway, Legend always does a great job colorizing old films. And as long as they take the time to offer a restored B&W version as well, i think it should be awesome. Although cheap, home-video 3D has never looked good. The old red-green effect hardly looks good in a theater, let alone on a TV screen. But I guess we'll see how PassmoreLab does with it.

-Rude

I misread this... the release in 3D isn't going to be for the home market, it's going to be theatrical (limited in the US).

[Bob]

I misread this... the release in 3D isn't going to be for the home market, it's going to be theatrical (limited in the US).

I think the press release mentions a DVD release via this site, right?

The 3D film will be released by Legend in Europe theatrically and in the United States in a limited theatrical release. It will also be released on DVD and as a downloadable version available on Rifftrax.com. The downloadable version will include hilarious RiffTrax commentary by former Mystery Science Theater 3000 stars Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy.

[Rude]

I think the press release mentions a DVD release via this site, right?

Yeah, that's why i mentioned the old-school home video 3D effect. I know that there have been some great looking, new 3D films out there in theaters recently. But that new technology hasn't quite made it's way into homes... yet. So i just assumed that if this new 3D version is released on DVD, as the press release states, then it will come with those old red-green glasses that i mentioned earlier. I could be wrong though...

-Rude

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Also I think the colorization isn't getting redone, just the 3D is getting added. So the source will be the same as what is on the current DVD.

That would be disappointing. The 3-D would probably look more impressive with a cleaner print. I had sold my old copy because the contrast and sharpness levels on the print did not look very good to my eyes, and I was hoping that Legend would reformat it with a better print. I've always considered that DVD to be Legend's most disappointing effort, although the Stooges box set ranks up there.

[torgosPizza]

I think the press release mentions a DVD release via this site, right?

Yeah but it won't be the 3D release, AFAIK, but I could be wrong. All I know is that it'll be a new 'trax, that has been almost entirely rewritten. I don't know exact stats but I do know a lot of it (along with other, older Legend titles that are getting redone) was gone over with a fine comb and tossed out.

Isaac, I know what you mean, I'll look into it and find out if they plan on cleaning up the footage at all. I'm not privy to a lot of the pure Legend stuff so t that's just my hunch.

[Doctor Who?]

I'm not sure if i believe this given the release date.

[majorjoe23]

Aren't April Fool's jokes generally made on April Fool's Day, not three months in advance?

[Rude]

...

Yeah sure, the poorly planned ones are... 

-Rude

[Edward J Grug III]

Everybody will turn up the the cinema and they'll actually be running Crossroads.

Man, I wish the 3D release would come out over here.

[torgosPizza]

I'm not sure if i believe this given the release date.

Believe it!

I also got word today that we are looking into releasing it as 3D on DVD. Apparently the glasses technology has improved (and using different colors) to the point where it's not as bad as it used to be to have to watch through them. Anyways that's all the info I have right now, but it should be pretty cool if all goes as planned!