1991 Series To Be Released On DVD

Is anybody returning Curtis' phone calls? lol

Well, I've never read anything about how Our Fathers did for Showtime, but I've read a few articles that said CBS was disappointed with the way Saving Milly performed for them. And in certain corners of the entertainment industry, you're often perceived only as well as your latest projects have performed. So, read into that what you might... 

Is anybody returning Curtis' phone calls? lol

Well, I've never read anything about how Our Fathers did for Showtime, but I've read a few articles that said CBS was disappointed with the way Saving Milly performed for them. And in certain corners of the entertainment industry, you're often perceived only as well as your latest projects have performed. So, read into that what you might... 

That certainly seems to be the case. It is just difficult for me to believe that not one single network is showing an interest in DS in light of the horror/supernatural genre making a big comeback on tv. Perhaps the problem is with DC not wanting to give up control after he was burned by the WB fiasco. At this point you would think that the networks are calling DC and not the reverse. Perhaps they just don't want to deal with him. But in any event, there is something terribly wrong here. A new DS series should be under discussion with a network. I just refuse to believe that "nothing is happening at the moment". The timing for a new DS series could not be better.

Wow, Evan, you got the scoop plus really started a hot topic!  You are definitely rivaling jimbo for his title!  LOL!

Wow, Evan, you got the scoop plus really started a hot topic!  You are definitely rivaling jimbo for his title!  LOL!

Mary, I will take your comment as a compliment I guess. Did not know there was a competition going on here. My "title" was a line from the movie Almost Famous, just in the event other people might have misinterpreted my intentions.

I'll definitely chime in to agree that Dan Curtis has no taste to speak of.  I still twitch every time I see those awful, ridiculous shots of poor Ben Cross doing his rabid-pooch thing, surrounded by dry ice, in the promos for the 91 series that litter my higher-number DS tapes.

I write that even though my beloved Grayson Hall went on record with the immortal remark that "Dan has a real genius when it comes to spook."  Gotta love that line...

So, the suits at MGM or Sony or whatever the hell it is really don't give two red cents about the quality of product on the DS 91 package.  That's what I take away from their evident decision not to go with the longer cuts of the earlier episodes, plus the perceived non-interest in the extras package from that MPI "DS Resurrected" tape (which I haven't seen). 

They must have the same low opinion of the 1991 series that I do!

surprised, Gothick

So, the suits at MGM or Sony or whatever the hell it is really don't give two red cents about the quality of product on the DS 91 package.  That's what I take away from their evident decision not to go with the longer cuts of the earlier episodes...

Actually, corporate motivation notwithstanding, I approve on them going with the broadcast versions. I've no problem with them including the deleted material elsewhere, but those extended versions don't really improve the episodes at all.  Particularly with the pilot, the added material was not graded, dubbed and scored with the rest of the production and each of the insertions jars badly.

The cover art for the packaging seems to have been released. Check out: An Evil Moon Haunts The Killer Cover of Dark Shadows Revival!

So, the suits at MGM or Sony or whatever the hell it is really don't give two red cents about the quality of product on the DS 91 package.  That's what I take away from their evident decision not to go with the longer cuts of the earlier episodes, plus the perceived non-interest in the extras package from that MPI "DS Resurrected" tape (which I haven't seen). 

I don't think I'd put it quite as harshly as that. MGM and Sony have extremely brilliant tech services and film restoration divisions and all their releases have an extremely high quality control standard. Picture and sound-wise these DVDs should be as perfect as they can look, barring a future HD-DVD release. (Now occasionally Sony is prone to incredibly bone-headed moves like putting out Scope movies in pan n scan only, even when they have HD transfers in both pan n scan and the correct ratio, but those are marketing department decisions and have nothing to do with the actual technical quality of the transfers and encoding work.)

The DS Resurrected tape is also an unusual situation. It's not owned by them- MPI (nee Jim Pierson) put it together. Now the clips are owned by MGM but they'd probably have to pay a license fee to MPI to use it...

Thanks for clearing that up Darren Gross I figured it was something like that, but I didn't know enough details to be sure. 

The cover art for the packaging seems to have been released.

THAT'S the cover?!!
 
I'm sorry.....that "moon" looks like a Snowy Owl gone rabid.

That cover is incredibly schlocky, but then, so were LARGE swathes of the show itself... That doesn't even look like Ben Cross--it looks more like Ferdy Mayne in Fearless Vampire Killers.

The bottom line seems to be that the suits at Sony/MGM/whatever decided to commit minimal amounts of time, money and resources to prepping the 1991 series DVD release.  I'm fascinated by the bits of information on the history of the release Darren has revealed.

Best wishes,

G.

I can't say that I was all that impressed with that cover art either. They should have used a picture or at least a drawing of Collinwood/Greystone rather than simple going with a generic "haunted" house.    However, I deliberately chose to use the phrase "seems to have been released" because sometimes distributors release a markup of a potential cover but the actual cover turns out to be quite different. One can only hope...

That certainly seems to be the case. It is just difficult for me to believe that not one single network is showing an interest in DS in light of the horror/supernatural genre making a big comeback on tv. Perhaps the problem is with DC not wanting to give up control after he was burned by the WB fiasco. At this point you would think that the networks are calling DC and not the reverse. Perhaps they just don't want to deal with him. But in any event, there is something terribly wrong here. A new DS series should be under discussion with a network. I just refuse to believe that "nothing is happening at the moment". The timing for a new DS series could not be better.

Well, while the supernatural genre may be making a big comeback on TV, (I keep hearing all over the web, but we have yet to see an actual trend of actual success in these upcoming shows. There's the anticipation that they'll be successful, but whether they'll do well or not is still an unknown.), it doesn't immediately indicate that networks are running around with the intention of scooping older series for remakes. That seems to be the overwhelming trend in feature films right now, but not in TV and there are a multitude of reasons...

Networks have dozens of on-going production and SERIES DEVELOPMENT deals with a multitude of producers, people like John Wells, JJ Abrams, Marc Cherry etc. People that for the most part have ongoing hit series, or have a track record of producing recent successful TV shows...Sprinkle in a few creative folks like a few writers and show runners who are eager to take the next step and produce their own series.

Network heads have a vested, creative and primarily financial interest in luring and acquiring the most cutting edge talent and visionary producers to their network in the hopes that they will continue their golden streaks (ie: John Wells and ER and Aaron Sorkin and WEST WING) and give their golden touch to a new show...Networks need hits and they pursue creative and successful producers aggressively and bend over backwards to keep them at their network.

Their jobs depend on it.

Would you want to be a network CEO responsible for not renewing a development deal with Aaron Sorkin only to find that the network that he jumped ship to now has his hugest hit on their network...And all that success could have been yours if you had kept him happy and continued his deal...

Now, if you're a creative producer you want to put together a few different series pitches and pilots each year to run by the network. Now, 95% of writers and producers want to create something new and tell the stories or create the characters they have had a burning desire to create and really don't have an interest in redoing an old show or recreating someone else's vision. As Orson Welles says in ED WOOD "Why waste your life making someone else's dreams?"...J. Michael Straczynski didn't want to do a new STAR TREK series...He wanted to do BABYLON 5 and realize his characters and tell his stories.

There are also solid financial reasons why an executive producer and network would desire original programming over remakes. A fresh new series is an easy profit share between the network and the executive producer. An old show like DARK SHADOWS reduces the amount the network and the executive producer make because a substantial portion of the profits would go to ABC for originally producing and co-owning part of the original series and for the original executive producer DAN CURTIS and whatever other entities have a piece of the pie (Art Wallace's estate etc.).

So, if you were going to make a series and endure the grueling hours, stress, uncertainty and intense politicking, public spotlight and criticism would you go through it to redo an old series or would you make your own new series and make 20% more for both you and the network?

Clearly Wells is successful enough and had enough interest and passion in the property to get Warners to commission the pilot script, then produce the pilot. As an executive producer with a production deal, they had a responsibility to keep him happy. Plus, they loved the script.

Even if the show had been picked up, it would have been a tough series to produce. With three executive producers (Wells, Curtis and Verheiden) trying to find a single vision between them AND get the network to agree on a daily basis would have been a grueling challenge, and very tough to deal with politically. The network execs and I'm sure Wells is well aware that it was not going to be an easy series to do, by any means.

Curtis and co. are in the unenvied position of being on the outside of the network development system which means they have to knock on doors and pitch their ideas each season in the hopes of getting a network head to show interest enough to put up script development money to take the next step toward a possible series. There are very few networks, ultimately and you can only try to sell the same idea so many times before they stop taking the meetings.  

The Fox script got developed from an outside pitch by Curtis to Fox because there was a fan at the network I believe.  The Wells pilot got made solely because of Wells' development deal and his interest in doing it.

There aren't rooms full of network execs anxiously looking through old series with the hopes of bringing them back...
There are no plans for further revivals of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, THE MUNSTERS, THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, STAR TREK, I DREAM OF JEANNIE, BUFFY, ANGEL, BABYLON 5, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST either...it's just the nature of the town...

They want something NEW, SHINY and FRESH and they're looking to their on-contract producers and the occasional outside pitch to find it...Remakes of old series are flukes, really, the new NIGHT STALKER especially...Curtis has been trying to get a NIGHT STALKER film, tv series of telemovie off the ground for decades and no network has ever bit.  For Frank Spotnitz, yes, for Dan Curtis, no.

There's no current signs of interest from any of the networks in doing Dark Shadows again, and while it may happen again, it'd have to be another Wells type situation where a contracted producer pitches it to his network, not another outside pitch from Curtis.

I think that Curtis is hoping for interest in the feature film arena, anyway, and is hoping Depp's soft, as of yet insubstantial interest in the property comes to something...

Darren, has Depp gone on record with an interest in the role of Barnabas Collins and Dark Shadows?

I live in a cave, so this could have very easily slipped past me if it happened.

Thanks, Steve

He mentioned in a couple interviews years ago how much he loved Dark Shadows as a kid and how he'd like to play Barnabas, but nothing very determined or meaningful about any serious plans to pursue it.