'Event Horizon' Blu-Ray Coming From Scream Factory, Who Hope To Restore Long-Lost Deleted Scenes

Event Horizon, Paul W. S. Anderson's sci-fi horror movie about a starship that accidentally opens a gateway to hell, is getting a new Blu-ray release from the fine folks at Scream Factory. That would be good news on its own, but it also comes with the reveal that Scream Factory is searching for the fabled long-lost footage that was removed from the movie due to its extreme violence.

When it hit theaters in 1997, Event Horizon was a flop – critics and audiences alike rejected the movie, and it only earned $26.7 million against a $60 million production budget. However, home video sales and rentals proved kinder to the movie, and over the years, Event Horizon has garnered itself a big cult following. And any fan of the project has likely heard about the long-lost footage. The production on Event Horizon was rushed, and, according to legend, an early test screening of the film had so much gore that several audience members fainted. Paramount brass was shocked as well, and demanded Anderson go back and trim down some of the violence, which he did.

However, after DVD sales went through the roof, Paramount changed their tune, and wanted to team up again with Anderson to release a director's cut. But there was a big problem: the footage was lost. In 2017, Anderson confirmed that one of the film's producers, Lloyd Levin, had a VHS copy of the movie that may still have the lost footage on it. However, Anderson added: "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!"

There have been no updates since then, but maybe, just maybe, that's about to change. Scream Factory revealed today that they were working on a New Event Horizon Blu-ray release, and along with the cover art (which you can see below), they included this message:

"New extras are in progress and will be announced on a later date. 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."

Now, this isn't a confirmation that the release will feature those lost scenes, but fingers crossed. Scream Factory hopes to release the Blu-ray on September 29, but adds: "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."