https://www.shoutfactory.com/product/ki ... ct_id=7572



Awesome cover, so pre-ordering to insure the poster. Also looks like it'll be including the full, three+ hour TV cut, although I don't know what the quality of it might be.

Also Joe Dante's Explorers, finally...!

https://www.shoutfactory.com/product/ex ... ct_id=7576

TV cut should be full 2.35 and in good shape because the European releases had the deleted scenes culled from a source in that condition. It's not derived from someone's VHS recording in other words (or shouldn't be!).

But the big news -- Shout Factory lives! What is this, their first release announcement since 2019? Seriously...at least a year I'd imagine. I was starting to get worried about those guys.

Figures, just bought the Brazil release. LOL.

LOL. I should have held off ordering from South America! But this is great to see this film FINALLY get a proper release in this market.

I'm going to have to assume that the 182 minute TV cut is a pan/scan master videotape used for the NBC airings. A lot of the key footage is extant in good widescreen format as the R2 DVD and the South American Blu-Ray revealed so it is possible to create a longer cut while remaining in widescreen but not as long as the overall TV cut was. Frankly a lot of the extra footage was mostly padding with the only key missing scene (in terms of not being in the foreign release supplements) being Presscott telling Dwan in the bar that if Kong dies they'd never be able to look at each other again, which explains their lack of reunion at the end.

With "Kong" and "Greatest Show On Earth" now coming (and "Black Sunday" announced by Via Vision) I am finally seeing my major Paramount titles taken care of! Here's hoping "When Worlds Collide" and "Naked Jungle" come too in this market (I haven't heard good notices about Via Vision's "When Worlds Collide").

Hard to know if it will be pan and scan. If its a broadcast master then yes but the fact the 3 hour SUPERMAN exists in wide-screen (which I never guessed would've been the case) and these King Kong deleted scenes are also 2.35 makes you wonder if they weren't cut together on film back then before being handed off to the TV people for panning and scanning. The deleted scenes from The Deep TV version also are 2.35 on Blu also. If the KK TV version was entirely transferred in 2.35 back at the time and not just a few deleted scenes then we might be good.

One point in favor of it not being pan/scan is that it wasn't a Universal film and thus, there are no scenes shot "just for TV" as was the case with all the Universal films that were padded for TV broadcasts in this era.

Shout doesn't tend to do much digging, so unless they've derived it from someone's bootleg tape (which they HAVE done in the past), my guess is the Kong TV version must've been sitting there in the Paramount vault. We'll find out!

Either way, we agree totally, the TV cut is so bloated, it doesn't have the compelling nature of the SUPERMAN TV cut, whose scenes are all interesting (even if they were wisely axed) and make watching it from time to time a curious "alternate" version for fans. Sure, the original theatrical version of Superman plays the best (IMO) of all of them, but I enjoy seeing what "could've been". On KONG, there's a few minutes worth of interest but it's mostly filler, especially in the second half.

The scene where the irate Petrox Chairman tells Wilson he's fired was meant for the original preview cut where Kong *misses* stomping Wilson, and was meant to show that Wilson was ruined and that he would have been better off if Kong had stomped him (that was Semple's intent). But audiences booed that it missed so when they re-edited the scene to imply Wilson was stomped they dropped the Petrox Chairman's scene from the final print (though the actor Sid Conrad remains in the credits). It is a bit of a goofy scene in that the Chairman instead of running like mad for his life with this giant ape on the move only feet away is more anxious to stay where he is just to shout, "YOU'RE FIRED!"

The fight with the snake was longer on TV to cover the deletion of the gory moment where Kong snaps the jaws open (itself a homage to how Kong kills the T-Rex in the original). But IMO the only scenes that should have stayed in were the F/X shots showing Kong throwing a car into a building, a longer version of him getting zapped in the power station, and finally the key dialogue between Jack and Dwan in the bar.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:54 pm
But the big news -- Shout Factory lives! What is this, their first release announcement since 2019? Seriously...at least a year I'd imagine. I was starting to get worried about those guys.

Same here. Last SF title I pre-ordered was Brides Of Dracula. At least this batch proves they're still in the game, and not just middling 80s genre crap, either (glad that stuff like He Knows You're Alone and The Hand is being released for fans, but they're awful movies ). With a number of Paramount titles in this batch, hopefully we can finally get The Dead Zone this year.

Surprised you didn't import one of the many DEAD ZONE's from elsewhere at this point...it's basically been released everywhere except here. Can't blame you for holding out though, the transfer isn't very good. Alas unless Paramount remastered it themselves, it'll be the same transfer since Shout apparently can't remaster any of their catalog titles.

That said, I wonder if they didn't just get some capital influxed into their system. Last year was DOA and eventually they stopped even sending most sites decent review titles. You could still get the anime and Sesame Street titles for coverage, or the bottom-barrel IFC catalog they handle, but the Carpenter 4K UHDs or Friday the 13th box set? Forgettaboutit. Hopefully they'll have some of these available for review again.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:22 pm Surprised you didn't import one of the many DEAD ZONE's from elsewhere at this point...it's basically been released everywhere except here. Can't blame you for holding out though, the transfer isn't very good. Alas unless Paramount remastered it themselves, it'll be the same transfer since Shout apparently can't remaster any of their catalog titles.

If it's not announced by the end of the year, I'll probably cave and get the Aussie release. It deserves a luxe treatment, though, as both one of Cronenberg's best and one of the top-tier Stephen King adaptations.

The original NBC "Big Event" intro for Pt. 2 of Kong from 9/17/78. I actually remember switching after the first hour of "Battlestar Galactica's" debut to catch this because that's how big "Kong" had been to me!



And here is the actual NBC news interruption during that airing of "Kong" for the Camp David Peace Accord announcement!