OUTLANDER UPDATE 5/28/09
My oh my, it’s been a long time since I wrote anything about Outlander. Well I guess I was a little stung by the absolute dump that TWC perpetrated on the movie. I don’t know if I mentioned in any of the previous posts but to my knowledge, there were no posters for the movie available on opening weekend. Spectacular, no? Ah well. So anyway, it’s now out there on DVD, complete with commentary, deleted scenes, concept art and some very cool animatics. I hope everyone who has been following this gets a chance to rent it. (But even on this I have to bitch – what the fuck is with that cover they designed? You can’t even tell it’s a creature movie.) Hopefully it’ll do well out there – as you can perhaps see from the pic up top, as of this writing, it was the number 3 rental on itunes, and that without the slightest bit of promotion.
Well, after all is said and done, we have a movie we can be proud of. Is it the finest movie in the world? No. Does it have merit? I think so. Plenty of mistakes made all around, and for those of you wondering about certain budget issues, yes, we lost $10,000,000 not long before shooting and simply had to make do with what we had. It meant moving the production from New Zealand to Canada, and the FX from WETA to Spin. It meant limited extras and just 50 shooting days. It meant not being able to recover from some catastrophically bad 2nd unit days. It meant not being able to even shoot the opening sequence as written, which was a battle between the hero and the creature inside the falling space ship, not just an exterior shot of its crash. It meant Howard, the producer and myself paying for the underwater sequences because we ran out of money. It meant 2 or 3 takes, not ‘do it until it’s right’. It meant limited coverage so some scenes couldn’t be edited properlY.
And for those wondering about the running time, we were told we could not run a single frame over the contractual running time, which is where it stands now. I mean that literally. Not a single frame. As a result, we had to cut out some scenes dear to my heart . (No big; all scenes are dear to the writer’s heart). But it also meant we couldn’t edit certain things properly because we couldn’t spare the frames. And, if you’ll notice, the credits roll by extra fast. This is because we needed the time.
Funny business, no?
In the end, I have a good movie, some terrific memories of great people and a lawsuit that’s still going on
OUTLANDERRRRRRR!!!!!
Outlanderthemovie's Weblog 
May 28, 2009 at 8:45 am
Hey Dirk! I’m glad to see you back in the swing of things. I’m actually listening to the commentary on the Blu-Ray right now…
Oh yeah, there’s another marvelous fuck-up… not on your part but the Weinsteins and Alliance films. First, the US didn’t get a blu-ray. Second, Alliance *CROPPED* the Canadian Blu-Ray release to 1.78:1 instead of Outlander’s 2.53:1. Oh well, all the special features are there which is pretty great.
For what it’s worth, I really like the movie and think you guys did an amazing job with the resources you had. I talked to Howard previously about *his cut* (which doesn’t exactly exist) and I’d love to see you guys get to go back and edit/complete a difinitive version of what you shot (even if you can’t go back and reshoot everything I’d still like to see the best possible edition of this version of the film).
The reviews on itunes and amazon are pretty cool. This guy can’t sing but here’s a fun link for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmmZatE5hm0
Your movie inspired some guy to write a song about it! Amazing!
Take Care
AD
May 29, 2009 at 2:28 am
Hey aaron – thanks again for keeping track of all this. I hope you feel a part of Outlander. You’ve done more on your end to promote the film than TWC. Nice being #3 on itunes, no? Caught that song. Wow is not quite the word. I wished he’d ended it with a good “Outlander! scream.
May 29, 2009 at 7:03 am
Yeah that was pretty great to see it at #3 on itunes.
You’re welcome! At times it almost feels like I’ve been a part of it. It’s pretty crazy that I’ve been running the website for over two and a half years.
My only regret is not being able to truly “discover” outlander since I’m so familiar with all the locations, sets, and even background actors and such and all the behind the scenes stuff. My friends all seem to really like the movie though.
May 28, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Adding it to my Netflix. 🙂
May 29, 2009 at 2:26 am
Reaver – I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for watching!
May 28, 2009 at 6:27 pm
The movie is great and i am going to promote it to any fantasy/sci-fi guy i know! I hope you get a fair cut of the money that the DVD brings in.
May 29, 2009 at 2:26 am
Thanks! Indeed, spread the word. I will get a certain amount for the DVD sales but it ain’t a ton. Many many years ago, the writers guild agreed to four cents for every TAPE sold because tapes were very expensive to produce. When dvds came in, which are much cheaper, we were never able to get the formula changed, so if 1 million dvds get sold, my partner and I will split $40,000. It will be very interesting to see what kind of residuals come in from internet sales, like itunes rentals.
May 29, 2009 at 6:31 am
Jeeez… this world sucks :D, can we please create another one where people actually doing the work get the biggest share? *sigh*, then i hope you make much more than just 1 Mio in DVDs hehe, lets say around 10? 😉
May 28, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Bought DVD Memorial Day weekend. Absolutely love the movie! Hope it has ‘legs’ on DVD. Promoted it best I could on Twitter and FB.
May 29, 2009 at 2:23 am
CB – thank you very much for your kind comments and for spreading the word. We hope that this will become ‘the one everyone missed’ at the theatrical level and find its life on DVD.
June 7, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I bought the Blu-ray to find the stunningly horrible transfer done by Alliance. Do you know if they are offering any exchanges? Will Outlander get a proper Blu-Ray release (from the US, bought the BD from Amazon.ca).
I really enjoyed the movie, but think even the DVD version looks better. I’m really hoping Alliance fixes this and offers some sort of exchange.