MARCH 11 | Warner Home Video is pouring on the love for Woodstock’s 40th anniversary, packing in two hours of never-before-released footage into its June 9 DVD/Blu-ray Disc re-release of the documentary about the 1969 music festival that became a cultural touchstone. Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music: Ultimate Collector’s Edition will be available on DVD ($59.98) and on Blu-ray ($69.99).
When the Woodstock project was announced last year, Warner initially expected to add one hour of previously unreleased concert footage. Now running at two hours, the new material includes 18 performances by 13 acts, spanning Joan Baez, Country Joe McDonald, Santana, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, among others. Five of the acts now included—Paul Butterfield, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Johnny Winter and Mountain—have never appeared in any film version of Woodstock.
Exclusive to the Blu-ray version are such features as a live community screening of Woodstock for Web-enabled high-definition players and a customizable playlist.
Both Ultimate Collector’s Editions will be packaged in numbered gift boxes and include a 60-page reprint of a Life commemorative issue. Vintage photos, festival memorabilia and an iron-on patch also will be in the sets.
The studio will offer a Woodstock first look to attendees of the South By Southwest Music + Film Festival on March 21.
Initially, Warner was circling a July 28 bow for the title in order to coincide more closely with the festival's true August 40th anniversary. But the studio bumped it up to please an unspecified retail chain planning a Woodstock-related promotion in June.
Woodstock will represent one of Warner's three major 2009 catalog tentpole titles. The other two are the first Blu-ray releases of The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind coming later this year.
Studio executives are betting that the extra two hours of footage will especially attract consumers to Woodstock. Warner was actually able to unearth 8 hours of previously hidden footage, but chose to carve it down to the best two hours of performances for release.
"Two hours is beyond rare," said Warner executive VP/general manager Jeff Baker. "It's not unusual for a filmmaker to have 15 minutes to an hour. But I'm not aware of any film that had 2 hours of content that filmmakers couldn't get in originally."
The title should enjoy a marketing boost from other planned activities around the festival’s 40th anniversary this year. [Source from: videobusiness.com]
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