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DVD producer David Prior is the man behind DVDs like Fight Club, Die Hard, both releases of Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes and Blade 2. He is also the man behind the long awaited Special Edition of David Cronenberg's The Fly.

As a regular member at the Home Theater Forum, he was kind enough to gives some updates about the status of The Fly DVD:

David [Cronenberg]'s commentary has been done for a long time. As you'd expect from him, it's terrific. He felt he said everything he needed to say there, so he has (so far, I'm still bugging him) declined an on-camera interview. He's busy making new movies and prefers not to dwell overly on the past. Pretty understandable.

Reassembling the deleted reel from boxes of unmarked negative and without logs or notes has been, shall we say, challenging. The good news is Cronenberg has approved most of it. Not all of it, but the majority of it.

I've been pestering, needling and making a general nuissance of myself at Fox to let me produce this DVD since I started doing this job and now it's in the home stretch. More details will come when Fox is ready, but hopefully this will tide you over till then.

Also:

A quick clarification: The DVD already has the green light -- it has for some time (seems like ages, actually). I know Fox wanted it finished a long time ago, but they deserve a lot of credit for not rushing it and letting me take the extra time.

JusteLeblanc wrote:I also liked their releases of The Abyss...

From a recent (?) Cronenberg interview...

"Fox once phoned wanting me to do a commentary for The Fly. I said, "Sure, as long as I get to oversee the transfer." It's never looked right except in theaters. Once it hit TV and so on, it was always too bright. They said, "No, we won't do that." [Laughs.] And I said, "Then I'm not doing the commentary." There won't be a good DVD until Fox, or whoever they delegate it to, is willing to let me oversee that transfer, which as you might expect is an important thing for the fans and for me since, as I say, it's never been seen in homes the way it's supposed to look -- ever.

Although rumors claim that the Special Edition DVD of The Fly has been delayed to Halloween 2006, we have some happier news.

Going to the Star Wars III Premiere on Thursday, Frothma ran into someone from Fox DVD, who told him that they are releasing a special edition on a single disk in September 2005.

Let's hope this is true and that this is really the special edition we are all looking forward to.

Thanks a lot, Frothma, for the scoop!

Just spoke with Cronenberg and he loved the doc I made, Fear of the Flesh (clocking in at about 2 and a half hours now), and reversed his position on the leg-amputation part of the monkey-cat sequence, so the deleted reel 8B will be presented in it's entirety. He even said that he's started reevaluating his position on deleted material in general. I don't know how much The Fly can take credit for that, but I like to think it had something to do with it.

The Fly will be two DVDs. With close to four hours of supplemental material (not including commentary), there's no other way to do it. I'm not sure who this tipster was [referring to the recent tip by Frothma posted here a week ago -- DK], but it was never going to be a single disc.

As to reel 8B, Cronenberg had problems with the leg amputation beyond just the lighting; he was never satisifed with the sequence as a whole. That said, it's misleading to think of them as different sequences -- it's one long scene that begins with the monkey cat and ends on the awning, and the rough cut screening in Toronto included the whole thing.

As far as other deleted scenes go, you will see more than you probably expected, most of them transferred from the original negative. From whole scenes, like Roni's interview of Brundle after the first teleporting, to excised bits of dialogue (poetry of the steak, etc.), even the bag lady murder in script form (it was never shot). Some are set apart in the Deleted Scenes section, the majority of them are contained within the documentary. And yes, there's quite a bit of foot sucking.

Based on what he said, I think the thing that changed Cronenberg's mind about the deleted material was the intense level of detail in the documentary. I edited the thing as I hoped it would live, knowing he might want me to cut huge chunks out. Thankfully, however, he appreciated the approach. He said it was like "re-living the whole experience, but in the best possible way." That was an amazingly gratifying thing to hear.

I tried to get Howard Shore to do one as well, but I couldn't schedule any time with him. Busy guy, as you can imagine.

The Digital Bits wrote:The Fly: Special Edition will feature the film in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen video with both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 audio.
Extras will include:
-Audio commentary by director David Cronenberg
-The Fear of the Flesh: The Making of The Fly documentary (broken into Fear of the Flesh: Larva, Fear of the Flesh: Pupa and Fear of the Flesh: Metamorphosis featurettes)
-4 deleted/alternate scenes (Second Interview, Monkey-Cat, Brundlefly vs. Bag Lady and Butterfly Baby/Alternate ending), test footage videos (Main Title Elements, Telepod Tests, Make-Up Tests, The Exploding Head and Cronenfly)
-15 featurette clips available via an optional branching mode while watching the film (including A Radical Departure, The Rise of Marketing, Who Wants to Die?, All You Have to Do is Be Passionate, Cronenberg's Preparation, On Cronenberg's Films, Cronenberg as Gynecologist, Cronenberg as Director, On the Cannes Jury, The Mother of Invention, It Takes Time to Spread the Goop, Glass-Break Test, Scotch & Razor Blades, Genes in the Ether, Winning the Oscar, The Last Collaboration, Haunted by the Fly and The Brundle Museum of Natural History)
-A number of interactive written texts (including George Langelaan's original short story, Charles Edward Pogue's original screenplay, David Cronenberg's rewrite, the Cinefex article The Fly Papers and the American Cinematographer articles New Buzz on an Old Theme and More About The Fly)
-A gallery of poster and lobby cart art
-A gallery of production photos and concept art
-A trailers and TV spots
-The David Cronenberg Profile featurette
-2 Easter eggs

Spoiler

Halloweener and Vomit Drop

-A look at genre films from the Summer of 1986 (including Big Trouble in Little China and Aliens, as well as The Fly).