Return of the Living Dead

[Finch]

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena
Perfect bound collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Gary Smart and a preview of the forthcoming sequel comic Revenge of the Living Dead
Double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena
DISC ONE – FEATURE
4K restoration from the original negative
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
Original* lossless mono audio plus DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Audio commentary by writer-director Dan O’Bannon and production designer William Stout
Audio commentary by Stout and actors Don Calfa, Brian Peck, Linnea Quigley, Beverly Randolph and Allan Trautman
Audio commentary by actors Thom Mathews and John Philbin and make-up effects artist Tony Gardner
Audio commentary by fans and filmmakers Gary Smart and Chris Griffiths
The Origins of the Living Dead, an archive interview with author John Russo
The FX of the Living Dead, an archive featurette on the special effects
Party Time: The Music of Return of the Living Dead, a featurette on the film’s soundtrack
Horror’s Hallowed Grounds, an archive tour of the locations by Sean Clark
The Dead Have Risen, an archive featurette with Calfa, Peck, Quigley, Randolph, Trautman, Clu Gulager and James Karen
Designing the Dead, an archive featurette with O’Bannon and Stout
The Decade of Darkness, an archive featurette about 1980s horror classics
Deleted scenes from a VHS workprint
Theatrical trailers and TV spots
DISC TWO – MORE BRAINS! (LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE)
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of the 2017 feature-length documentary about the making of the film, featuring extensive interviews with cast and crew
A Conversation with Dan O’Bannon: The Final Interview
Deleted scenes from the documentary
Return of the Living Dead in 3 Minutes
Resurrected Settings: The Filming Locations Today

*The song “Dead Beat Dance” by The Damned has been replaced due to rights issues beyond our control.

[yoloswegmaster]

It's pretty lame that the bonus disc with the documentary is locked to the L.E. edition only, especially when the Shout disc keeps it. Unless there is some rights issue specific to the U.K.

[dwk]

so the only thing that seems to be exclusive to this are the booklet and
Deleted scenes from the documentary
Return of the Living Dead in 3 Minutes
Resurrected Settings: The Filming Locations Today

While the Scream disc has everything else (Scream has the full workprint, not just the deleted scenes.)

[Finch]

Makes you wonder how Second Sight managed to retain Dead Beat Dance for their BD.

[dwk]

Most likely answer is they just put it on there and didn't get caught.

[JamesF]

I can tell you that we certainly did try to license the song, and had set aside a generous budget in order to do so, but hit a brick wall despite our best efforts. For those not aware, in order to license a song for film and television, you need to clear two sets of rights: the publishing rights to the composition, and the sync rights to the actual recording. Sometimes those rights are owned by the same company, but more often than not, it's two different companies who both require equal terms and payment before separately agreeing a deal. (This is also why it's incredibly difficult to clear music videos as bonus features.) Anyway, after tracking down which companies held both sets of rights for "Dead Beat Dance", one didn't reply to our repeated queries at all, and another said they didn't have the rights even though they definitely do. Nothing to do with The Damned wanting too much money or hating the film - just plain old incredibly frustrating administrative inertia. (We'd asked Second Sight how they cleared it and Chris couldn't remember.) It's worth noting that MGM have gone as far as revising the end credits and the official music cue sheet to remove all mention of the song now, so it's not like there's an argument for precedent in "accidentally" including the track - it's not cleared for use, end of story. At least it's only in the background on a radio for 40 seconds - of all the songs on the soundtrack, it's arguably the most disposable.

[MichaelB]

(This is also why it's incredibly difficult to clear music videos as bonus features.)

The single most expensive item on the BFI's Jan Švankmajer shorts compilation, and by a very considerable distance, was the music video Another Kind of Love.

It took us ages to track down the rightsholder, not least because people kept denying they had it - and when we finally did track them down, they wanted an eye-watering sum that sadly was squarely in line with what they usually charge (believe me, I checked!). I had to go on bended knees to the BFI's Head of Content for permission to license it, arguing that although it was way, way over initial budget, it would allow us to call the set Jan Švankmajer: The Complete Short Films - and, thankfully, he agreed that this was worth investing in.

But I'm not surprised that the BFI didn't license Derek Jarman's music videos for their Jarman set - given how expensive it was to clear just one, I can only imagine the bill run up by multiple videos!

[beamish14]

(This is also why it's incredibly difficult to clear music videos as bonus features.)

The single most expensive item on the BFI's Jan Švankmajer shorts compilation, and by a very considerable distance, was the music video Another Kind of Love.

It took us ages to track down the rightsholder, not least because people kept denying they had it - and when we finally did track them down, they wanted an eye-watering sum that sadly was squarely in line with what they usually charge (believe me, I checked!). I had to go on bended knees to the BFI's Head of Content for permission to license it, arguing that although it was way, way over initial budget, it would allow us to call the set Jan Švankmajer: The Complete Short Films - and, thankfully, he agreed that this was worth investing in.

But I'm not surprised that the BFI didn't license Derek Jarman's music videos for their Jarman set - given how expensive it was to clear just one, I can only imagine the bill run up by multiple videos!

The Brothers Quay’s His Name is Alive video has always been a thorn, too.

The loss of “Dead Beat Dance” is a shame, but it doesn’t alter the film that much. It’s not like cutting Killing Joke’s “Eighties” from Weird Science from EVERY home video release pre-Arrow’s, Blu-Ray, which fundamentally weakens a great moment

[DeprongMori]

(This is also why it's incredibly difficult to clear music videos as bonus features.)

But I'm not surprised that the BFI didn't license Derek Jarman's music videos for their Jarman set - given how expensive it was to clear just one, I can only imagine the bill run up by multiple videos!

I had been curious about why the Marianne Faithful videos hadn’t been included in the Jarman sets. Such a shame it was such an insuperable challenge.

[colinr0380]

I presume that this is also why the Apollo 440 music video is not going to turn up on the Lost In Space disc!

Re: music rights issues, I would argue that this is really where the 'lawless' internet helps protect culture in some ways (at least for now), as at least that material is archived somewhere if not allowed/financially viable enough to be commercially available. I also think this is where a broadcaster such as the BBC, with presumably blanket music rights agreements for single broadcasts, could be a real force for good in being able to broadcast films that otherwise would not be commercially available. I had to keep hold of a late 90s off air VHS recording of Looking For Mr Goodbar for decades before it finally received a release last year for example, which wasn't perfect but was at least something. And the ELO-heavy Joyride was MIA for decades due to its soundtrack until the recent US release.

[Orlac]

I presume that this is also why the Apollo 440 music video is not going to turn up on the Lost In Space disc!

Re: music rights issues, I would argue that this is really where the 'lawless' internet helps protect culture in some ways (at least for now), as at least that material is archived somewhere if not allowed/financially viable enough to be commercially available. I also think this is where a broadcaster such as the BBC, with presumably blanket music rights agreements for single broadcasts, could be a real force for good in being able to broadcast films that otherwise would not be commercially available. I had to keep hold of a late 90s off air VHS recording of Looking For Mr Goodbar for decades before it finally received a release last year for example, which wasn't perfect but was at least something. And the ELO-heavy Joyride was MIA for decades due to its soundtrack until the recent US release.

What issues were there in that release?

[colinr0380]

Sorry, I may have phrased that awkwardly. There was nothing wrong with the eventual disc release, but wasn't it the issues with clearing all of the rights to the music that kept Looking For Mr Goodbar out of circulation for so many years?

[beamish14]

Sorry, I may have phrased that awkwardly. There was nothing wrong with the eventual disc release, but wasn't it the issues with clearing all of the rights to the music that kept Looking For Mr Goodbar out of circulation for so many years?

Yes, and I believe it is still missing a Frank Sinatra song that can be faintly heard in the background of one scene

[MichaelB]

Prior to the 1970s, the overwhelming majority of films had scores that were created in-house and owned outright by the studio, but when you had films taking a more "jukebox" approach to their scoring, a phenomenon that increased markedly as the 1970s progressed, the home video rights generally weren't cleared upfront because such things didn't exist.

Which means that if they're to be rendered releasable on home video, the rights need to be cleared again specifically with that in mind.

Often, this is possible, but sometimes it isn't - either outright, because the rights aren't available at all (this isn't a 1970s example, but Jimmy Page is adamant that he's never going to license a certain sample for Bad Lieutenant no matter how much money is on offer) or because clearing them would cost far, far more than can realistically be recouped, which is the case with California Split.

But because broadcast rights were cleared, and streaming is deemed to be the equivalent of broadcasting, those issues don't apply, which is why uncut versions of both Looking for Mr Goodbar and California Split are viewable, perfectly legally, via streaming.

[Orlac]

I recently re-read John Russo's 1978 novel, little or any of which actually made it into the finished movie. It's mostly an uninspired rehash of NIGHT, but one zombie attack is alarmingly borderline pornographic!

[knives]

Here’s a random thought that would apply to California Split: wouldn’t it be theoretically possible to license songs piecemeal? As in one release might figure out the rights for one or two songs locking them in forever then a few years down the line another release tries for one or two more songs with the previous ones that were figured out being still good?

[MichaelB]

But throughout all this the original version is available via streaming services.

Indicator could have released the 2005 DVD cut, but opted not to for that specific reason - if the original is easily available (which wasn't the case in 2005), why bother?

[dwk]

I think knives is asking if they can just clear a song or two every year until they are all cleared and then release it on disc.

[MichaelB]

He seemed to be talking about multiple releases several years apart, the rather optimistic theory being that people would keep double, triple or quadruple dipping until they finally ended up with something that matched the version that's been available on streaming services all along.

Also, who ends up with the rights to the songs? Sony, as the film's rightsholder? I really can't see how this would work.

[knives]

I think knives is asking if they can just clear a song or two every year until they are all cleared and then release it on disc.

This is what I was getting at. Like if Sony owned a film in this situation and decided to every few years get a few more songs or alternatively they lease out said film to different outfits over the years and those untie a song or two at a time. I’m not saying this is anything a company actually would want to do, just wondering if such a situation could theoretically happen.

[MichaelB]

Any situation can theoretically happen, but this looks like a total non-starter for reasons that I've already raised.

To sum these up in more detail...

Why would any label take on this huge extra expense, only to knowingly release a compromised version, which of course would be immediately flagged up as a compromised version by disgruntled early customers? Surely that's a 100% certain money-loser, and quite a lot of money at that?

Why would an individual label clear the rights in perpetuity when they'd only directly be able to benefit from those rights during the lifetime of their license with Sony? (Typically five to seven years, and of course your proposal is predicated on the assumption that that license will expire and someone else will take it over.)

This being the case, would the label who subsequently took over the release of a more complete version have to split their royalties with Sony and the label responsible for the earlier clearances, given that said label would own the necessary rights?

How is this going to be negotiated upfront with all the relevant parties? Label B, for instance, won't be able to exploit the film for years, a time when the physical media market may well be a thing of the past.

Would Sony actually go along with any of this, at least without insisting that they assumed control over all the relevant rights when the licenses expired, since it's ultimately their film? (But if this is the case, what's in it for the individual labels aside from a thumping financial loss?)

And, with apologies for repeating myself, what's the point, when throughout this entire protracted several-year process a high-definition copy of the full version is easily and legally available via streaming?

[colinr0380]

Prior to the 1970s, the overwhelming majority of films had scores that were created in-house and owned outright by the studio, but when you had films taking a more "jukebox" approach to their scoring, a phenomenon that increased markedly as the 1970s progressed, the home video rights generally weren't cleared upfront because such things didn't exist.

I know there is the outlier of Medium Cool having some soundtrack issues too but was it American Graffiti that was one of the main films credited with creating the 'needle drop' soundtrack-backed film set to popular songs, which became especially big later in the decade with Saturday Night Fever and Looking For Mr Goodbar both having a lot of diegetic music due to their discotheque settings?