Blackhat

[swo17]

Naked Lunch has a separate "original art" edition, which Arrow have started to do somewhat often. Blackhat just has the one edition though, and their websites still show the originally announced art, for now anyway

[What A Disgrace]

It was also delayed until July.

[therewillbeblus]

Naked Lunch has a separate "original art" edition, which Arrow have started to do somewhat often.

Interesting, thanks for the info

[yoloswegmaster]

This has now been delayed till September. I wonder what the reason could be for it to be delayed again for another 2 months.

[The Narrator Returns]

Not to get anybody's hopes up too high, but this comes a few days after Josh Lewis tweeted that he'd heard positive word about the release of "a director's cut that has never gotten an official release before".

[dwk]

The director's cut of Blackhat has had an official release, on FX. It just isn't available on disc.

[What A Disgrace]

This has now been delayed till September. I wonder what the reason could be for it to be delayed again for another 2 months.

I have this in an order with five other movies from DiabolikDVD, all of which I want to see a whole lot more than this, so I'm guessing their reason for the delay is to make me unreasonably angry.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

The cover seems to have been changed to the original poster too. My instinct is Mann got involved with the release and is making changes.

[rapta]

The cover seems to have been changed to the original poster too. My instinct is Mann got involved with the release and is making changes.

That was exactly my thought when it changed, he must've caught wind of this release and disapproved of the alternate artwork? Now it has been delayed, that could mean he's figuring out the DC too, but perhaps it's more complicated than expected. I hope Arrow confirm very soon as I was actually considering pre-ordering and definitely will if it's included.

[rwiggum]

I feel like MOST of the reaction I saw on Twitter was people being disappointed this didn't include the director's cut, so I feel (maybe wishful thinking) that's the most likely reason for the big delay. That was really the deciding factor for me, I went from super excited about the release (I even kind of liked the original artwork in its own way) to deciding to skip it. If they include the DC I'll for sure get it

[Finch]

Imagine the reaction on social media if after this additional delay whatever was holding it up turns out not to be the director's cut.

[Finch]

I thought this was a nice appreciation of the theatrical and DC, and if they do end up securing the latter, I might actually buy the disc.

[Boosmahn]

Perhaps this is me being ignorant of a larger issue, but couldn't Mann just do a similar recut for the Arrow release and call it a "newer" director's cut? The biggest change doesn't even involve exclusive footage, it's as "simple" (while it significantly alters the story, the edit itself is not difficult) as swapping two scenes around.

[Ribs]

I think the other thing is knowing Mann that he probably has a version that is different from the cut he presented five years ago that he has further refined. Regardless it would be very funny if they delay this release repeatedly and don’t end up producing the edit we really want, so fingers crossed!

[chrisandy007]

Perhaps this is me being ignorant of a larger issue, but couldn't Mann just do a similar recut for the Arrow release and call it a "newer" director's cut? The biggest change doesn't even involve exclusive footage, it's as "simple" (while it significantly alters the story, the edit itself is not difficult) as swapping two scenes around.

The reason that’s been given (publicly) is that it’s a rights issue. Arrow could not obtain the rights to the DC.

Mann isn’t involved with the Arrow release and is busy deep in post with Ferrari. The cuts are also quite extensive beyond swapping two scenes.

[Grand Wazoo]

From a newsletter Arrow just sent out:

We listened to your feedback about our release of Blackhat not including Michael Mann's revised director's cut of the film and we are very pleased to confirm that the original digital files have been found. It will now be included as a second Blu-ray Disc. To allow time for disc authoring and quality control, we have had to push the release date back to 4th September. We hope you understand the necessity for this delay and are as excited as we are to be able to feature this significantly different version of the film alongside the two previously announced cuts.

[MichaelB]

We listened to your feedback about our release of Blackhat not including Michael Mann's revised director's cut of the film and we are very pleased to confirm that the original digital files have been found. It will now be included as a second Blu-ray Disc. To allow time for disc authoring and quality control, we have had to push the release date back to 4th September. We hope you understand the necessity for this delay and are as excited as we are to be able to feature this significantly different version of the film alongside the two previously announced cuts.

[Calvin]

That seems to suggest a very different reasoning for its original exclusion than was said publicly...anyway, this is obviously very very good news and I'll certainly be pre-ordering it now.

[willoneill]

Great news, but this implies (contrary to online conjecture) that it was never a rights issue at all, but rather the availability of the digital files. Which honestly seems like a weird excuse for a cut that's not very old.

[therewillbeblus]

Weird, I had a dream last night that Arrow kept mailing me copies of this and auto-charging my credit card, despite me hating the film and not signing up for any such program and asking them to stop. But these copies included the director's cut even though there was no formal announcement of it, and were coming months in advance of its release making them a special lucrative item, so I kept selling them off in a Sisyphean cycle of Kafka-esque stress

So wait, does this mean the DC is going to be blu-ray only, while the theatrical cut gets the 4K upgrade?

[chrisandy007]

Great news, but this implies (contrary to online conjecture) that it was never a rights issue at all, but rather the availability of the digital files. Which honestly seems like a weird excuse for a cut that's not very old.

I didn't realize the distributor saying "We tried, but it was a rights issue" is the same as online conjecture.

[willoneill]

Great news, but this implies (contrary to online conjecture) that it was never a rights issue at all, but rather the availability of the digital files. Which honestly seems like a weird excuse for a cut that's not very old.

I didn't realize the distributor saying "We tried, but it was a rights issue" is the same as online conjecture.

Yeah I didn't remember the exact details, so I was trying to avoid saying something that may not be completely true. But it was in fact Arrow themselves who made that statement, not just a rumour online, which makes today's announcement that much weirder.

[Finch]

So wait, does this mean the DC is going to be blu-ray only, while the theatrical cut gets the 4K upgrade?

Would appear to be the case as they surely would have shouted it from the rooftops if the DC was getting its own UHD and the RRP would likely have gone up too. Weird that their reasoning changed from it being a rights issue to finally being able to locate the files which makes me speculate that they genuinely underestimated the interest in and demand for the Director's Cut (to be fair, this is the only film of his where the DC is more popular than the theatrical). Either way, it's a win-win for all parties. Arrow are going to shift more copies and everyone who likes/loves the film or wants to see it gets to see both versions.

[flyonthewall2983]

Which could create the demand eventually for a UHD of the DC, hopefully

[dwk]

I'm happy they are including it, but if the DC is only getting a standard Blu-ray, I see no reason to get the UHD.