Event Horizon: Plans for Remastered Blu-Ray Release Unveiled

It seems a little hard to comprehend now, but Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon totally flopped back in 1997. The sci-fi horror project just did not find the audience it was looking for, but like many genre films, it went on to become a cult classic.

Starring Sam Neill, Laurence Fishburne, Joely Richardson and Jason Isaacs, Event Horizon sends its characters to explore the titular ship, which disappears and then reappears after opening a rift in the space-time continuum. It’s all downhill for them after that, as a nightmare of discovery unfolds at a brisk pace. Of course, it’s set at a brisk pace because director Anderson was forced to cut around 35 minutes out of the movie thanks to negative test screening feedback and a subsequently panicked studio in Paramount. We lost a lotta gore that day, friends. A lotta gore.

“There was a lot more that was shot that isn’t in the movie. But you’ll never see the messed up version because we made Event before the kind of DVD revolution. You know, DVD ushered in this era when you had to have additional footage, deleted scenes, things like that,” Anderson has explained.

“There was no call for that back when we were just doing VHS cassettes and LaserDiscs,” he added. “So the material just wasn’t archived very well, and since the movie became a big cult classic, Paramount has asked us to come back in and do different versions and we looked for the material, and it just doesn’t exist.”

However, in 2017, Anderson teased that producer Lloyd Levin may have a VHS tape with the cut Event Horizon scenes intact. “I’ve never managed to watch it, nor has he, because he moved to Spain. I travel so much and we’ve never been in the same country with a VHS player and him having the cassette in his hands, but I’m very excited about doing it at some point. I’d like to see what’s on that tape!”

Now Scream Factory, who are putting together a new Collector’s Edition Blu-ray of the film, are on an Indiana Jones-level mission to find that missing footage, too. They’ve just revealed details of their plans, which include a 4K scan, brand-new bonus features, a limited edition Event Horizon poster and, with any luck, those deleted scenes we’ve been keen to clap our eyes on for years.

Here are the details of the new Event Horizon Collector’s Edition, per Scream Factory:

• National street date for North America (Region A) is planned for Sept 29th. Please note that the date could change as we are still experiencing a domino effect from the COVID situation–which has caused numerous delays for earlier releases in our schedule, as you have seen. We’ll do our best to keep this date of course, but we’re still in an unprecedented time in which getting access to talent for extras or setting up film transfers are more challenging than they were before. We appreciate your understanding now and in advance and hopefully there will be some stabilization.

• This is being presented as a Collector’s Edition release and will come guaranteed with a slipcover in its first three months of release.

• The newly commissioned artwork you see pictured comes to us from artist Joel Robinson. This art will be front-facing and the reverse side of the wrap will feature the original theatrical artwork.

• New extras are in progress and will be announced on a later date (Aug timing, and also depending on current events). We can confirm today that we are doing a new 4K scan of the film! As for any much-inquired-about additional footage (in addition to what’s be presented on prior releases), we are looking into it as best we can. We welcome any leads you may have alongside our efforts.

• The first 500 orders will include an exclusive limited-edition 18” x 24” rolled poster of the exclusive new illustration.