Firstly, it didn't have a wide release as originally intended, but only went to three theatres for its season. All three are prominent venues that attract large traffic.

Despite the fact that it only went to three screens and did not go wide, all three prints were 35MM. Here's the final irony: all three locations that are showing it have 70MM projection capability!

As Brian Grazer and Ron Howard said on the 'Far and Away' trailer, '35MM is great...but that's still not our movie'. There was a great opportunity this year to show the public what this great film really means but this re-release has not achieved that.

...

As much as I enjoy this movie, I think 2001 has been done to death in this town as was proven by its last dismal outing about 6 years ago. Even with a brand new (albeit crappy registration) print, it failed to bring in an audience.

Will you be running a new 70mm print and does it have mag or dts track? I believe the old print I mentioned above had to be destoyed due to the rights expiring fom the distributor.

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"It's not the years, honey...it's the mileage". Indiana Jones

/ p.

Thanks for the poster! Speaking to the distributor reveals that they have imported one 70MM print, although they were unable to tell me whether it was DTS or mag. Either way, I can't understand why they didn't use it at one of the three locations now showing it...or can I?

Another thing...the newspaper copy proudly heralded that 2001 was showing 'for the first time in digital sound!'. Gee, if only they had shown it in DLP then the ad copy could have said, 'For the first time in digital sound AND picture!'

I did hear another interesting anecdote...apparently the distributor had to insist that it is forbidden to cut out the intermission tag on the new prints.

Oh, dear...

Surely these three aren't running intermissions...are they?

Who's the distributor now?

The fact that you say there is only one 70mm of 2001 would tend to say more the reason you are not running it at the moment. Perhaps someone else has it who was willing to offer the 2day /2night sessions they are demanding?

Daisy...Daisy...(get it...'Peter'?)

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"It's not the years, honey...it's the mileage". Indiana Jones

The thing about removing the intermission tag is that Kubrick wanted to have an intermission right after we discover that HAL is lipreading the two astronauts. Removing the same is not quite presenting the film as He had intended. Then again, neither is 35MM projection, which is the main point of my thread.

The distributor is Roadshow, by the way. They certainly went to some trouble and expense by bringing in new trailers, which are excellent, but lack the 70MM push that the original trailer had. The text during the trailer says, 'In 1969, it was ahead of its time. In 2001, its time has come. Still the ultimate trip - just not as sharp as you remember it'. (Well, not the last part anyway).

So it's a huge shame to go to all that trouble and then drop the ball when it comes to the presentation itself. Insult to injury: one of the theatres running it is dead opposite what used to be the Plaza theatre, purpose built for Cinerama. They ran 2001 in single-strip years ago; that was before the site was demolished so it could become a McDonalds.

I don't mean to be a Cassandra, but really...

The new 70mm print we ran here in Bradford last week was SR mag stripe.

The neg it was printed from still had some scratching and other marks. The restoration budget apparently didn't run to digital retouching.

I hear that the prints for the US release(late Summer?) may be DTS.

BTW we screened the print on the louvred Cinerama screen. Some of those amongst the audience that weren't in the know thought that the visible lines from the over 1000 screen strips were scratches on the print .

Would someone please remove that man's splicer...?

The film was made with an intermission and lots of very special enter-the-act music.

Since when has it become a projectionist's job to edit a film ??

Shame !

/p.

Per, the 35mm prints we ran in 1982 had no entracte music nor overture music attached yet the leaders were still original and had never been spliced.

If it was so important to run this in two parts, why was this print allowed to be made so? Also, it had original cues leading up to the intermission tag, which had been added from different stock.

It runs through just fine without an intermission and these are multiplexes running them...not grand old presentations of yester-year. When Michael gets his hands on the 70mm print, I'm sure it will and should run in two parts, but please get off your soapbox to me about how it should be seen in a crappy little shoebox.

Perhaps more letters to distributors reminding them how the print should be shown (as the film maker intended) might help.

What can these cinemas do while the overtures are running? They have no curtains to look at...it all seems a bit pointless.

If Warners are going to be such sticklers for this film, then they shouldn't let inferior 35mm prints play in 70mm territories.