Arrow Announcements, Speculation & Wild, Irresponsible Conjecture

[Glowingwabbit]

All credit to this post at the Blu-ray forums for figuring it out that it was a clue for Irezumi.

Wow that is impressive. It's a great film (It got a Japanese blu-ray last year I beleive). But does Arrow usually announce a director's work two months in a row? Keep the Masumura's coming!!!!

edit nevermind, it occurs to me that with Covid releases are getting moved up and down the schedule so it might not have been planned this way.

[MichaelB]

The amazing thing about this film is that its producer, the late David Weisman, kept every single rush from it. You can create something similar to the Charles Laughton Directs "The Night of the Hunter" feature from the Arrow and Criterion discs that was made by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

A minor but, given which subforum you’re posting on, arguably necessary tweak.

[DRW.mov]

I had the immense pleasure of knowing and working with David before his death and his biggest goal was getting Spider Woman rereleased on disc and potentially theatrically in a way that would potentially rewrite some of the negative press it got from queer groups at the time of it’s release. He saw it not as a gay film but as a trans film and a proper restoration and marketing campaign, he hoped, would illuminate that. I know his goal was Criterion but if Arrow was able to get it that would be just as exciting.
He also owned the rights to Hector Babenco’s Pixote as well and Olive had been trying to option it but I’m happy to see it ended up with WCF and Criterion. I don’t know if he ever inked anything on Spider Woman before his death though, but it was streaming on FilmStruck for a time. I’m hoping he was able to set it up somewhere. He didn’t have any children so I’m not sure where the rights are now.

[beamish14]

I had the immense pleasure of knowing and working with David before his death and his biggest goal was getting Spider Woman rereleased on disc and potentially theatrically in a way that would potentially rewrite some of the negative press it got from queer groups at the time of it’s release. He saw it not as a gay film but as a trans film and a proper restoration and marketing campaign, he hoped, would illuminate that. I know his goal was Criterion but if Arrow was able to get it that would be just as exciting.
He also owned the rights to Hector Babenco’s Pixote as well and Olive had been trying to option it but I’m happy to see it ended up with WCF and Criterion. I don’t know if he ever inked anything on Spider Woman before his death though, but it was streaming on FilmStruck for a time. I’m hoping he was able to set it up somewhere. He didn’t have any children so I’m not sure where the rights are now.

Thank you for these insights. Another forum member here and myself saw him at a screening of Kiss of the Spider Woman at the Hammer in Los Angeles a number of years ago. It was one of the most spirited and informative discussions I've ever seen. He mentioned wanting to mount a museum exhibit that would show the film's progression from development through post-production, and I hope all of that material will be made public eventually.

[M Sanderson]

I'm hoping for Spider's Labyrinth (1988)

I wish

[yoloswegmaster]

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage 4K UHD and Major Dundee have been leaked on Amazon so far.

EDIT: Arrow is also going to be releasing Irezumi, The Stylist, and a boxset titled "Years of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers 1973–1977"

[rapta]

Major Dundee and Irezumi are excellent announcements, excited for both (as I am looking forward to Over the Edge from last month too).

That Years of Lead set looks excellent too but I can't justify it in the current climate (Indicator's Universal Hammer set, Eureka's Johnnie To run continues, and Criterion are porting over Flowers of Shanghai and The Night of the Hunter in the same month). I'm sure that'll be popular, and probably get a reissue later in the year (sans-book).

[What A Disgrace]

I'm guessing we'll be getting 4K Blu-ray upgrades of Dario Argento films in order of release. Whether or not we'll get *all* of them that way is a different matter (Cat and Four Flies simply aren't as popular, and Opera is with other labels in both territories), but I'm sure Deep Red and his first three 80s films are likelihoods.

[Maltic]

It is apparently Irezumi, as that is the species of spider that appears in the film.

Ooh, good catch! That absolutely sounds tailor made for Arrow Video.
Strong reviews on Letterboxd

Furtado is hands down the Letterboxd MVP.

[bad future]

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage 4K UHD and Major Dundee have been leaked on Amazon so far.

EDIT: Arrow is also going to be releasing Irezumi, The Stylist, and a boxset titled "Years of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers 1973–1977"

So, in the oft-cited big list of clues, I’m guessing STYLIST in June is self explanatory, and then we’ve got BUHD in July for the Argento(?); YOL BOXSET in August for Years of Lead; and then MD?^ and IR presumably for Major Dundee and Irezumi, both originally slotted for September. If those all correspond in those ways, definitely the biggest deviation from the schedule yet, which is probably to be expected as the year and pandemic go on...

[dwk]

here is the updated schedule


a later tweet clarified

Sorry HW should be crossed out as in deleted. Other crossed out titles go to 2022.

I assume HW was Hardware

[Maltic]

Please be The Web

It appears Kino answered your prayers instead

KLStudioClassics
@KLStudioClassic
Coming July 13th!

The Web (1947)
• NEW Audio Commentary by Professor and Film Scholar Jason A. Ney
• Theatrical Trailer

From Michael Gordon, the acclaimed director of An Act of Murder, The Lady Gambles, Woman in Hiding, Pillow Talk, Portrait in Black & Texas Across the River!

[swo17]

Oh that's right, I'd forgotten!

[M Sanderson]

There’s a 4k restoration of Don Siegel’s The Killers out there, including an already OOP German UHD. Any chance we’ll see this get upgraded by Arrow? I’d love to get some Don Siegel in 4k.

[AfterTheRain]

I don't know if it was mentioned here or not, but I'd like to point out that I saw an insert for Peter Jackson's The Frighteners in a copy of the Silent Running Blu-ray I recently picked up, which makes me believe that Arrow's planning on a release in the near future.

[AidanKing]

Although I can understand the reasons for wanting to streamline the range, and presumably save money on issues such as design, I can't help feeling that the merging of the Arrow and Academy lines is likely to result in a reduction in the variety of the type of films that Arrow will release in future. I suspect we'll be much less likely to see releases such as the Taviani, Rosi, Godard, Rivette and Rohmer films that Arrow has brought out in the past. However, to be fair, it looks as if Arrow has been releasing fewer of these kinds of films recently in any case, so possibly it won't make much difference in the long run.

[tenia]

It always seemed to me Academy titles were selling much less overall than Video titles. Then, the Academy line started releasing less titles on top of that, and the titles feeling less adventurous too. I guess it was just a matter of time before it made sense aknowledging this state of things and for the Video branch to absorb the Academy one.
I'm not sure it'll mean less Academy-type titles in the future, but from a sales and pace point of view, I guess it was to be expected.

[yoloswegmaster]

I don't know if it was mentioned here or not, but I'd like to point out that I saw an insert for Peter Jackson's The Frighteners in a copy of the Silent Running Blu-ray I recently picked up, which makes me believe that Arrow's planning on a release in the near future.

Fran Simeoni stated on Twitter that the release for 'The Frighteners' was delayed since the restoration isn't finished and "other problems".

[AfterTheRain]

I don't know if it was mentioned here or not, but I'd like to point out that I saw an insert for Peter Jackson's The Frighteners in a copy of the Silent Running Blu-ray I recently picked up, which makes me believe that Arrow's planning on a release in the near future.

Fran Simeoni stated on Twitter that the release for 'The Frighteners' was delayed since the restoration isn't finished and "other problems".

OK then. Good to know that it's still on the platter for the future.

[rapta]

Although I can understand the reasons for wanting to streamline the range, and presumably save money on issues such as design, I can't help feeling that the merging of the Arrow and Academy lines is likely to result in a reduction in the variety of the type of films that Arrow will release in future. I suspect we'll be much less likely to see releases such as the Taviani, Rosi, Godard, Rivette and Rohmer films that Arrow has brought out in the past. However, to be fair, it looks as if Arrow has been releasing fewer of these kinds of films recently in any case, so possibly it won't make much difference in the long run.

Guaranteed at least half of those titles you listed didn't sell well enough for them to consider doing things similar - the Taviani and Godard-Gorin sets are still very much in print and are regularly very cheap (even outside of an Arrow sale) and therefore incredible value for money. That's likely one of the reasons for merging the two labels, as they clearly were making some risky releases from a financial standpoint, and the Academy library was soon being viewed as the 'slow burner' range. Much easier to market and distribute these things if they're all under one banner, and like you say, will probably mean we'll see a little less variety in future but still the odd surprise I'm sure (they're already releasing some dubious stuff under the Arrow Video line, I'm sure some would agree).

I'm hoping this move will be beneficial for Arrow overall as it'll mean solely Arrow Video fans (i.e. cult, horror, exploitation etc) will have everything to consider now, whether it's 'high brow' or 'low brow' or somewhere in-between, and not disregard stuff that was previously under the Arrow Academy title. In other words, even the experimental Japanese box sets will be Arrow Video and would hopefully attract people who had got into, say, Suzuki or Masamura through Arrow Video (but who previously might have disregarded Yoshida or Jissoji as 'arthouse', potentially affecting sales of those sets).

I reckon this was also done to adjust Arrow back into view of rivals like Criterion, Indicator and BFI who tend not to use sub-labels and who release a huge range of genres and styles under one name (Masters of Cinema are obviously an outlier at this point, and due to brand recognition it'd be much harder for them to merge with Eureka Classics, and will likely never happen in fact).

[MichaelB]

The fact that the Taviani box set was a limited edition (2,000 copies, I think) and is still in print speaks volumes in itself! I'm as proud of that release as I am of anything that I worked on, but it attracted virtually no attention when it was released (Arrow was changing PR companies at the time, which I suspect didn't help), and has relied on intermittent word of mouth ever since.

It's a shame, as I'd love to work on another Taviani project, but if their three best-known films can't sell out in nearly five years I can't see a UK label doing, say, a box set of the early political stuff.

[yoloswegmaster]

The fact that the Taviani box set was a limited edition (2,000 copies, I think) and is still in print speaks volumes in itself! I'm as proud of that release as I am of anything that I worked on, but it attracted virtually no attention when it was released (Arrow was changing PR companies at the time, which I suspect didn't help), and has relied on intermittent word of mouth ever since.

It's a shame, as I'd love to work on another Taviani project, but if their three best-known films can't sell out in nearly five years I can't see a UK label doing, say, a box set of the early political stuff.

I'm pretty sure the Taviani box sold out late last year, as I recall not being able to find it on their website during their November sale.

[MichaelB]

Even so, that's four and a half years.

[swo17]

Aren't both the Taviani and G+G sets only available now in subsequent slimmed down editions? What I really want to know is--what are the odds we get some early Yoshida?

[yoloswegmaster]

Only the slimmed down version of the G+G set is available, with the Taviani set not even appearing on the site. I hope there are plans to reissue it, alongside a reissue of Ludwig.