Press reports:
Michael Jackson's Thriller 3D will premiere at the upcoming Venice Film Festival, three years after Jackson's estate settled their legal battle with director John Landis and first announced plans to rerelease the singer's "Thriller" music video in 3-D.
Landis, along with Optimum Productions, supervised the updated version of the legendary 1983 video – the greatest music video of all time – that now boasts "the highest quality audio and visual experience" via "the latest available technology" in addition to the 3D conversion.
"I am so happy to have had the chance not only to restore but enhance Michael Jackson's Thriller," Landis said in a statement. "We took full advantage of the remarkable advances in technology to add new dimensions to both the visual and the audio bringing it to a whole new level. Even though Thriller was shot traditionally, I was able to use the 3-D creatively. Let me just warn you, there is a rather shocking surprise in there."
Jackson estate co-executors John Branca and John McClain added, "Michael Jackson made Thriller a rich theatrical experience: Fun, funny, scary and wildly entertaining. No one before or since has made anything like it. Michael Jackson's Thriller 3D is a modern day technical enhancement of his and John Landis’ original vision, and I think fans will love it."
The premiere at the Venice Film Festival, which begins August 30th, will also include a screening of the Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller documentary that aired on MTV and Showtime when the video first premiered; the mini-documentary, created to offset the production costs of the "Thriller" video, has been out-of-print since the VHS stopped being produced in 1990.
Plans for a wider release for Michael Jackson's Thriller 3D have not yet been revealed. The 3-D version of the 14-minute short film was originally conceived as a backdrop during Jackson's planned This Is It tour. However, shortly before Jackson's death, Landis and the singer's estate soon became embroiled in a legal battle over the ownership of the film, a fight that lasted nearly five years.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...ller-3d-to-screen-at-venice-film-fest-w496275
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Also as above.......
John Branca, co-executor of the estate of Michael Jackson, describes the restored and enhanced Thriller as “authentic, visceral and still impactful. When you see it in a theater on the big screen with a theater-level sound system, it’s pretty unbelievable,” he adds. “Michael was going to use 3D elements on the This Is It tour, so this is something Michael would have done. He would love this.”
Branca and fellow Jackson estate co-executor John McClain will join Landis when Michael Jackson’s Thriller 3D is screened at the Venice Film Festival along with the original Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It was Branca, Jackson’s then-attorney, who negotiated the history-making deal between MTV and Showtime for this first of its kind documentary, which helped offset the cost of filming Thriller.
According to Branca, more news and events tied to Michael Jackson’s Thriller 3D will be announced in the coming weeks. Thriller remains the only music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
http://www.billboard.com/articles/c...riller-3d-world-premiere-venice-film-festival
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If you weren’t around in 1983, it’s all but impossible to understand the sensation caused by the release of the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” – and it’s impossible for those of us who were here to overstate it. The 14-minute promotional clip for the title single from Jackson’s blockbuster album wasn’t just a “music video”; it was a full-on short film, with wrap-around story and dialogue scenes, directed and written by John Landis (Animal House), whose 1981 film An American Werewolf in London inspired Jackson’s vision for the video. (Landis brought along that film’s Oscar-winning make-up artist Rick Baker to provide the convincing creature effects.) From its ambitious conception to its big-screen personnel to its successful theatrical run and home video release, Michael Jackson’s Thriller was treated less like a music video than a movie (and it’s the only music video in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry). So it only makes sense that, like many beloved movies from our recent past, it’s being re-mastered and re-released in 3D.
Landis supervised the restoration and conversion from the original 35mm negative, provided by the Jackson estate archives. (If you’re curious about how they make a 3D movie out of one that wasn’t shot that way, here’s more on that.)
In addition to the visual work, the film’s audio – the song, the effects, and Elmer Bernstein’s original score – has been upgraded to 5.7, 7.1, and Atmos standards. So as usual, however you feel about slapping a layer of 3D on an old movie, at least they’re doing a restoration first.
Michael Jackson’s Thriller 3D will make its world premiere at the 74th annual Venice Film Festival next month, alongside its original companion film The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller – an hour-long behind-the-scenes documentary whose broadcast sale to MTV and Showtime and release on VHS offset the costs of the pricey Thriller film itself. Making Of has never been released on any other format, and Thriller has never been released on Blu-ray – so here’s hoping there’s more news on that front to come.
http://flavorwire.com/609047/michael-jacksons-thriller-is-getting-a-3-d-upgrade
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As above , with additional material:
Thriller premiered at the AVCO Theatre in Los Angeles in 1983, and it sold out every night for three weeks. It remains the only music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. It is fitting that Michael Jackson’s Thriller 3D and Making of Michael Jackson’sThriller will premiere at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, the oldest film festival in the world.
The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller was available on VHS from 1983-1990, and has never been available for purchase in any format since then. Its screening in Venice will mark the first time that the award-winning documentary has ever been shown in a theater.
Read more at
http://www.comingsoon.net/horror/news/877029-michael-jacksons-thriller-3d#sUxIfGvZcIrQslid.99
