(Left) The MGM offices as seen from the Fox studio lot. (Right) Fox executive offices housed in the “Nakatomi” building from “Die-Hard”
The afternoon featured a visit to the Fox Studios. Fox provided us with a number of distinct discussions and presentations that dealt with not only their upcoming blu-ray offerings, but a glimpse into their long history in movie-making. Due to the size of our group, it was impractical to bring the group to the various spots on the studio lot, so they brought the stories and objects of interest to one of their screening rooms which hosted our group.
We first heard quite a bit about the troubled production of Cleopatra, and how the making-of the film might make an interesting film in and of itself. It's simply mind-boggling that a film budgeted for $3 million ended up taking over $40 million to finally finish, though its leading lady almost didn't finish the film due to illness, and the director was replaced early, and the replacement director was pushed to his limits to get the film completed.
-Patrick Sun
We got to see a handful of props from past films. We were shown Wilson, the volleyball from "Cast Away". Then we saw a few items from Planet of the Apes (2003), like a Thade mask made for a stuntman that was based from Tim Roth's head, and a big menacing sword welded by Michael Duncan Clarke's character. The visor for Cyclops in X-Men 2 and 3 was brought in, as well as the conceptual art for the visor in X-Men. The Sai that was used by Jennifer Garner's Elektra character in Daredevil, and later in her own Elektra film was shown to us, and it was the collapsable model that allowed it to be used to stab people without hurting them (supposedly...). We were shown the Oscar statuette that was awarded to Fox for their innovation of Cinemascope.
-Patrick Sun
Then a discussion of the restoration effect for "The Robe" commenced by showing us some film elements and how they were integrated into the final restored product, though it was a tough assignment due to the lack of strong elements discovered for use in the restoration effort. -Patrick Sun
Thank you Fox!
I applaud the restoration effort on The Robe and the presentation on Cleopatra was really enjoyable.
Thanks for the demos on some of the extras and features found on your BD disks - these will be appreciated and truly extend the viewing experience.
-Dave Whipps
Not much more I can add to what others have already said, other than my thanks for their generous hospitality and the opportunity to visit the Fox employee store.
-Steven Leach
Our utmost thanks to Steve Feldstein (pictured above), Dorit Ragosine and Callie Jernigan. Fox has been a continued supporter of this forum.
