French film studio and distribution giant StudioCanal has announced a veritable feast of digitally-restored 4K cinema classics that will be coming to movie theaters, streaming platforms and Blu-ray disc players over the next year.
The company revealed that it has spent an incredible seven years and more than 25 million euros working to restore almost 1,000 classic movies in enhanced, 4K glory, including titles like Pan’s Labyrinth, Manhunter, Terminator 2 and To Be or Not to Be. The fruit of that labour is a new collection of movies called StudioCanal Classics, which contains hundreds of the world’s most “beloved, iconic, timeless and influential films” spanning more than a century of filmmaking history.
The studio said it began the restoration project in the previous decade because it realised it had a responsibility as the rights owner of these movies to “preserve the enduring impact and cultural legacy of these extraordinary films and filmmakers,” said StudioCanal Chief Executive Anna Marsh.
“We believe that every generation in every corner of the world should have the opportunity to discover, celebrate and revere some of the greatest films ever made,” she added. “Because great films live forever.”
One of the first restored movies in the StudioCanal Classics collection to be released was Michael Mann’s Manhunter: The Final Cut (pictured, below), an iconic movie that provided the foundational blueprint for the forensic serial-killer thriller genre, years before The Silence of the Lambs popularized the concept. The 4K restoration premiered in select U.S. theatres in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the film’s original release, and opened in U.K. cinemas the following month.
At the time, StudioCanal didn’t reveal that the Manhunter: The Final Cut release was part of a much larger project that also includes classics such as Pan’s Labyrinth and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The restoration of Pan’s Labyrinth was supervised by its original director Guillermo del Toro, while Terminator 2 was originally restored in 4K in 2017, controversially applying digital noise reduction techniques. The two movies are both set to be re-released in 3D format later this year, as well as in standard 4K, and distributed via 4K Blu-ray disc, StudioCanal said.
Other classic restored titles set to launch this year include To Be or Not To Be, a classic comedy from 1942 directed by Ernst Lubitsch, the 1984 neo-noir crime hit Blood Simple (pictured below), the 2013 comedy/drama Inside Llewyn Davis, and the 1992 biographical Chaplin, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the legendary comic actor and filmmaker. Finally, StudioCanal said it’s also planning to release the 1967 love-triangle drama film Accident this year too. They’ll be released via cinemas, streaming platforms and UHD Blu-ray, as well as other channels, the studio said.
Looking forward to next year, StudioCanal said it’s going to release many more titles in the StudioCanal Classics portfolio, including a “highly anticipated David Lynch collection.”
The best news is that this appears to be an ongoing project. The company owns the rights to a massive library of more than 18,000 titles dating back more than 100 years, and it will continue its restoration efforts going forward.
