EXCLUSIVE: Future Warner Home Video Restorations Revealed!

I just got off the phone with George Feltenstein, Warner Home Video senior vice president of catalog marketing, to talk about the incredible new restoration of How the West Was Won Ultimate Collectors Edition, and towards the end of the interview, Feltenstein revealed some plans for upcoming future restorations coming our way from Warner Home Video, including the Alfred Hitchcock classic, North By Northwest's 50th Anniversary Edition and Gone With the Wind's 70th Anniversary Edition. Here's what he had to say below.

So, what's next for you? Do you have any other big restoration projects that you are launching in the near future?

George Feltenstein: Yes. We're actually working on some huge ones right now. Woodstock is one of them, which we just announced, which will be coming out a year from now, with the 40th Anniversary. The magnificent 1954 version of A Star Is Born, with Judy Garland and James Mason. It's a 6K restoration that we're doing. That's one of the earliest CinemaScope movies and it's a masterpiece, as far as we're concerned and that is something that we're restoring the picture and the sound for a whole new presentation. The, what I think is Alfred Hitchcock's greatest movie, North By Northwest. That is one of our big big restorations for next year because the camera negative is totally faded and we're unable to make good 35mm prints of the film. Using technology digitally and what's left of the negative and the safety separations, we're rebuilding the film, rebuilding the color and then after doing this restoration, we'll be doing a digital restoration that can become a film-out and create new good prints again on this film. The 50th anniversary is next year and that's a big project for us. Then next year is the 70th anniversary of Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz and those are coming out on Blu-Ray as well. So, there's a lot happening here and we're dedicating a great deal of time, energy and resources to these restoration projects to give people better presentations of magnificent films that will last forever.

So will these all be released in big boxed sets like How the West Was Won Ultimate Collectors Edition with a bunch of souvenirs and stuff like that?

George Feltenstein: Yes. We're working on these things right now and we have some very, very nifty ideas. The consumers are going to be really, really happy.

Keep an eye out for my full interview with George Feltenstein about How the West Was Won Ultimate Collectors Edition, which hits the shelves on DVD and Blu-Ray on September 9, in the very near future.