Mike Hodges' camp sci-fi adventure celebrates its 40th anniversary with a new restoration in cinemas and home formats.
A box office flop on its original release in 1980, director Mike Hodges' big screen adaptation of comic book Flash Gordon has since developed a cult following, thanks in no small part to its camp elements.
The film stars Sam Jones as American Football hero Flash Gordon, who finds himself thrust into a quest to save our planet from the evil intentions of Ming the Merciless (Max Von Sydow).
For its 40th anniversary, Flash Gordon has been spruced up with a brand new 4K restoration approved by Hodges.
Speaking of the restoration, Hodges said "I’m very grateful to Studiocanal for this brilliant 4k restoration. The restoration captures perfectly the vivid colours of the sets, skies and costumes. It also corrects some of the problems encountered with the special effects system we used. With Chroma key compositing we could insert skies, rocket ships, hawk-men, pretty well whatever we wanted, into the blue backing built into the studio sets. The problems came later when we had to eliminate, for example, the wires used on the hawk-men. We were eventually successful but even then some 35mm prints were variable and the wires would be back again. With this new restoration that problem is thankfully laid to rest. Of course Chroma key is primitive by the side of the current process, CGI (Computer Generated Imaging). That said, I’m pleased we stuck with the old fashioned system. CGI would have been too slick. After all Flash Gordon was a cartoon strip from the 1930s brought back to life on celluloid some five decades later."
Studiocanal will release Flash Gordon in UK cinemas from July 31st and on 4K UHD Collector’s edition, Blu-ray, Steelbook, DVD and digital on August 10th.
Bonus features include commentaries by Hodges and actor Brian Blessed; a featurette on Nicolas Roeg's unmade Flash Gordon; behind the scenes footage; an interview with Hodges; a reunion featurettes and more.
The five disc collector's edition also includes the 2017 documentary Life After Flash; the original soundtrack by Queen and Howard Blake; a 32 page booklet; 16 page mini book; reproduced booklet of the first strip of original comic books; poster of original artwork; four artcards of various incarnations of Flash film posters across the years; and a sew on 'Flash patch'. Phew!
Check out Studiocanal's trailer, poster, exploded packshot and a restored clip below.
New Trailer for Arrow Video’s Release of Mike Hodges’ BLACK RAINBOWhttps://t.co/uJ66Yr8pPx pic.twitter.com/PPMB5Hdygf— The Movie Waffler (@themoviewaffler) June 30, 2020