Rolling Thunder, Grindhouse and Cowboy Go ‘Beyond’ Dinner and a Movie, To Midnight

Rolling Thunder, Grindhouse and Cowboy Go 'Beyond' Dinner and a Movie, To Midnight

by Mark Rabinowitz

This summer, Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder, Grindhouse Productions and Cowboy Booking International are getting set to re-release Lucio Fulci's classic scream-fest, "The Beyond." After initial runs in New York, L.A. and five other cities for midnight screenings on June 12th, Cowboy is planning a summer roll-out to other cities across the country. indieWIRE spoke with Cowboy Vice-President John Vanco about the re-release, which started with Rolling Thunder principles Tarantino and Jerry Martinez. "Fulci is one of (Tarantino and Martinez's) favorite directors," said Vanco, adding that the pair "wanted to have someone with a little more kind of midnight movie specialized kind of background (distribute the film)." That brought them to Vanco and his Cowboy partner Noah Cowan, who started the Midnight Madness series of screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival.

When prompted, Vanco said that "it would be great" to play at some of the remaining drive-in theaters in the country along with the usual indoor locations. "In some places we're playing in arthouse theaters, in calendar houses," adding, "in some places we're going to be playing in college film series. We're really gonna go to whatever venues have thriving midnight traditions going on." Vanco also said that Rolling Thunder in interested in having this re-release "be the beginning of a midnight revival," giving traditional midnight films a place to play outside of television.

Programming a midnight movie can be easy or hard, depending on the part of the country being targeted. Cowboy recognizes that, with Vanco saying, "In some cities like Los Angeles, for instance, have really strong midnight movies going on (with) maybe ten or fifteen screens with different movies every Friday and Saturday night, whereas in (other cities) there's one. Rocky Horror is playing on one screen. It's gonna be a little harder (in cities like that)."

Bob Murawski and Sage Stallone's Grindhouse Productions, which purchased the re-release rights to "The Beyond," is a Hollywood-based company "dedicated to the restoration and preservation of motion pictures historically held in very low regard," according to the press release issued about the re-release. Grindhouse will also be releasing the laser disc release which promises to have all sorts of extras, like behind the scenes footage and interviews with the stars, according to Vanco.

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Cowboy Booking International is releasing Tim Kirkman's documentary "Dear Jesse" on June 19th in New York, with a national roll-out set to follow during the summer. Rolling Thunder, was created, according to Quentin Tarantino's prepared statement, because "it's a film buff's dream to give the theatrical experience to films that might never be seen in this country." Films released by the company include "Chungking Express," "Switchblade Sisters" and Takeshi Kitano's "Sonatine." Login to recommend this article » posted on April 8, 1998 Films to Snag Login to Leave a Comment »