Updated June 12 - Street Date for the Blu-Ray is October 9!
Here is my previous post detailing Frank Oz's discussions about this release:
The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly has an interview with Frank Oz (illustrated with links from yours truly) in which he discusses the decision to change the ending of Little Shop of Horrors and explains why only the black & white workprint was available for release on DVD back in 1998. Apparently the preview copy of the original ending was disassembled when the new footage was edited in, and contrary to Geffen's supposition the clips were not stored.
But more importantly, ninja spies attending Oz's Q&A at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 16 report that Oz confirmed that the original negatives for the sequence do exist and that there will be a Blu-Ray available for Halloween 2012! Audio recording of the interview
Oz's interview also sheds light on why the Blu-Ray will apparently be billed as "The Intended Cut" instead of "The Original Cut" or "The Director's Cut." The true original cut was not saved, so this will be a new edit of the ending "as intended," and Frank Oz himself is not involved in the project, so it's not a true director's cut. He also mentioned that he doesn't know if other lost clips such as the "Meek Shall Inherit" dream sequence and shots of the plant eating Steve Martin's head still survive. (UPDATE, obviously the folks over at Warner's decided that "The Director's Cut" was more marketable and changed it, presumably with Frank Oz's blessing.)
In other news, it appears that Little Shop will be remade with personnel from Glee and the very talented and very cute Joseph Gordon Levitt as Seymour. I take this news with mixed feelings, as I fear a slick, homogenized CGI-fest. Get Basil Twist on it! But JoGoLev would definitely make a great Seymour. I could even go for Zooey as Audrey if it comes to that. However, I have to say I'd be much more interested in seeing a grisly & weird remake of the Roger Corman black comedy. Get Rod Zombie on it!
ORIGINAL ORIGINAL POST:
Some interesting things are afoot in the world of Little Shop of Horrors.
At his career retrospective at the Museum of the Moving Image last fall, director Frank Oz said that WB Home Video is working on an original-ending Blu-Ray for the musical. This got everybody's hopes up, but there has been no announcement or confirmation of this project - until now, it seems. Eagle eyes (thanks, Aryeh!) have caught mention of a January MPAA bulletin giving a PG-13 rating to something called Little Shop of Horrors - The Intended Cut for late 2012! If this is true, then it will be truly epic! This news is so exciting I can hardly even bring myself to think about it, just in case my hopes are dashed once more.
Just in case this is really happening and anybody from WB might be searching the net for "what the people want," (hey, I'm people!) here's my Blu-Ray wish list of what I'd love to see on the disc, including the very rarely seen storyboards by legendary comic book and concept artist, Mike Ploog.
To tide us over, the original 1960 film is being released on Blu-Ray soon from Legend. Legend usually does good work so it should be a nice presentation of the film, which is in the public domain and thus suffers from a glut of cheapie home video releases of appalling quality. (For my money, the best version currently available is the one packaged with Trailers From Hell Volume 2 - and you get a ton of fun vintage trailers, too!)
To tide us over, the original 1960 film is being released on Blu-Ray soon from Legend. Legend usually does good work so it should be a nice presentation of the film, which is in the public domain and thus suffers from a glut of cheapie home video releases of appalling quality. (For my money, the best version currently available is the one packaged with Trailers From Hell Volume 2 - and you get a ton of fun vintage trailers, too!)
And here's one more taste of Little Shop goodness: a TV spot for the original LA cast, featuring the cut song "Don't Feed the Plants."
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