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$0 If you live in London, England and are fortunate to be around the BFI Film on Film Festival you were in for a special treat on 12th June as the festival had the first screening of the original cut of Star Wars, the first showing of this cut since 1978!
The movie was significantly changed in the Special Edition version of Star Wars in 1998 in the run up to the first prequel movie Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace in 1999.
This was a very rare treat for fans of the series as the Special Editions, especially of this movie, have caused controversy over the year, especially the now famous "Han Shoots First" scene.
A brief history of this print of the film as found in various sources on the internet:
The BFI (British Film Institute) found the print in their archives and after contacting Lucasfilm about doing a screening they agreed.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said she was surprise that the print existed, but agreed to the screening as she thinks it is a valuable artifact in historical cinema.
Kennedy presented the showing to prove it was a legal copy!
As explained by the BFI
"In these very special screenings, we present the film exactly as experienced by audiences on its original 1977 release. Screening from one of the precious handful of dye transfer IB Technicolor prints produced uniquely for the first British release, and preserved in the BFI National Archive"
Lets hope this sentiment to the original cut goes that bit further and, as the whole trilogy is owned by Disney since the buyout of Fox, it gets a 4K remastered home release, as well as Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Return of the Jedi.
More in fo can be found here.Elvis tops the UK box office on its debut weekend ending the 2 week run of Jurassic World: Dominion.
The Black Phone is also new at number 5 this weekend while outside the top 5 Jug Jugg Jeeyo is new at 6 with £163,648, George Michael Freedom is new at number 9 with £68,399 and finally Sher Bagga is new at 13 with £28,084.
Directed by the excellent Baz Luhrmann and starring an Oscar worthy performance by Austin Butler as Elvis the new bio-pic makes its debut at number 1.
The movie opens with a gross of £4 Million.
Two weeks at the top for the third in the sequel Jurassic series as the movie gets replaces at the top of the UK box office.
The movie takes a third weekend gross of £3.4 Million, a 40% drop over last weekend, which pushes the movies total gross to £27.1 Million.
This makes it the 5th top movie of 2022 in the UK, although it is the lowest grossing of the "world" series of Jurassic movies.
The Tom Cruise starring sequel movie falls to number 3 this weekend with £3.3 Million, a small 21% drop from last weekend, on its 5th weekend of release.
Globally the movie has just gone over the $1 Billion mark, and in the UK it has been no slouch as it crosses the £60 Million mark with a total UK gross of £63 Million.
This gives the movie the title of top movie of 2022, which I think it will retain, and it is about to break into the top 20 UK movies of all time with the district possibility of getting into the top 10 in the coming weeks.
Pixars much anticipated Buzz Lightyear origin movie has unfortunately been a bit of a flop of the Disney based studio as it drops to number 4 on its second weekend of release with £2.2 Million, a 38% drop over its debut last weekend.
This gives the movie a total gross after 2 weeks of £6.9 Million, not a bad 2 week gross, but this is a Pixar movie!
Finally on the top 5 this weekend is the new horror movie from director Scott Derrickson which stars Ethan Hawke and Mason Thames.
The movie takes a very reasonable £1.3 Million on its UK debut.
Disney are at it again moving Pixar's Soul from June 19th to November 20th and their own Raya And The Last Dragon to March 12th 2021.
This first move, Soul, is an interesting one, Disney recently moved their tentpole picture Mulan to 24th July, I guess they are presuming cinemas will be open again by then, but by moving Soul they seem to be suggesting that things will still be on lockdown in mid June?
The move also puts the film in direct competition with Godzilla Vs. Kong, and since that film has been moved once already I suspect unfortunately that the film may well go direct to streaming, a lot depends how long the lockdown lasts though.
Raya And The Last Dragon was due for a late November release and it makes sense to move the film to 2021.
The scheduling issue are starting to get a bit of a nightmare mind as this move to Raya puts it in loose competition with many tentpole films from various studios, and means that early 2021 is starting to get very crowded.
Expect more re-scheduling from studios as there is still no sign of cinemas opening in the coming weeks.
Raya and the Last Dragon in theatres March 12, 2021. pic.twitter.com/9S1Sm9Qniu
— Walt Disney Studios (@DisneyStudios) April 13, 2020
Disney and Pixar’s Soul in theatres November 20, 2020. #PixarSoul pic.twitter.com/6R5XODq4T3
— Walt Disney Studios (@DisneyStudios) April 13, 2020
The US box office is having the quietest November in many years and this weekend an all new top 4 has Midway topping the chart on its debut albeit with one of the lowest takes for a top film, last weeks number 1, Terminator: Dark Fate, fell to number 5 on its second weekend.
Directed by Roland Emmerich the World Way II drama hits the top of the US box office with a very low for America $6.4 Million.
The film has performed better than expected for the studio and with little in the way of positive reviews once the late November and December big hitters are released the film will disappear quickly.
Not performing as expected the sequel to 1980's The Shining enters the US box office with $5.2 Million.
With Halloween well out of the way and a busy period coming this will make its way onto home video quite quickly and unfortunately will slip out of the box office.
A lot of publicity has hit this Christmas hit and the new film from director Paul Feig lands at number 3 this weekend with a gross of $4 Million.
The movie is being heavily publicised for its use of music from Wham! and the late George Micheal, especially the track Last Christmas which the film shares a title, this could see a boost more towards Christmas itself but it may as easily burn out quickly.
Starring John Cena a former WWE star the makers of this film must be looking for the kind of success that Dwayne Johnson has had but the film lands at number 4 this week with $3.5 Million.
There is no denying that the new Terminator movie, which had large expectations, simply hasn't re-ignited the once mighty franchise despite bringing back Linda Hamilton.
The film falls this week to number 5 with a weekend gross of $2.8 Million with a total gross in America now $40.4 Million.
The movie is falling fast and it will be lucky if it gets to $100 Million at the US market.
The DC Villain movie falls out of the top 5 this weekend but its the highest total grossing movie on the US top 10 with an amazing $306.8 Million after 6 weeks of release.
The Men In Black are back and hit the top of the global box office on their debut weekend of release leaving X-Men: Dark Phoenix to drop from the top after only a week.
The series started way back in 1997 and over 20 years later we get the fourth film with new stars and an international setting.
Unfortunately the Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth starring movie has not done nearly as well as the previous film and globally grosses $102.2 million from 57 countries on its debut.
Its been a bit of a slow burner but the Will Smith starring Disney live action film is still at 2 with a global take of $64.2 million from 56 countries.
This pushes the films total gross to a very acceptable $724.8 million after 4 weeks of release.
After making its debut at the top last week the X-Men film falls to number 3 this week with $33.2 million from 56 countries.
The film has now taken a global gross of $204.2 million afer 2 weeks.
The animated movie takes $32.2 million from 37 countries this weekend for a total gross of $154.5 million after 4 weeks of release.
The Godzilla sequel takes $22 million from a whopping 80 countries this weekend and is at 5 on the global box office, the films total gross is $339.4 after 3 weeks of release.
The Samual L. Jackson film is the second highest new film this week at number 9 with a global gross of $8.3 million from a single country of release.
The Marvel movie is struggling to beat Avatar and this week sits at number 12 on the box office with a total gross of $2.742 million.
It has been announced that the film will be pushed at the cinemas again next week with an extra bonus added to the film, it might just be enough to push it past Avatar.