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Old 30th November 2021, 11:17 PM
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From the Raygun newsletter -

The Raygun spoke to Network’s Tim Beddows after the announcement, who said the reaction to the news had been hugely positive and he’d been inundated with messages and queries about the catalogue and deal. “If anyone can breathe life into Hammer,” he noted, “we can.”

He said the long process of negotiation had started after Network negotiated to release the original TV take of Hammer classic The Woman In Black, a hugely successful lockdown release of what Beddows calls “one of the great lost films of the video age:, “The more we talked with Hammer [and CEO Simon Oakes] we realised we had much more in common than one film. He wasn’t aware of what we’d done since we set the label up 25 years ago – we do restorations, we’ve always been self sufficient and do them in-house. It fitted with what he wanted to do with the library." While Oakes will concentrate on new productions, Beddows noted, “we’re getting our hands dirty with the library, getting it into shape”. He added that with the restoration work, they’d be looking to remaster the entire catalogue and release everything they could onto Blu-ray. The restoration work would help preserve the library for the future too. “It’ll be in an exploitable shape for anything we want to do with it, and it will be safeguarded for the future," Beddows noted. The deal covers some 100 films, with 160 different titles in total taking in other shorts and TV episodes. “We'll release everything in one form or another.” He said the aim was to do justice to some of the jewels in the catalogue that had previously been available, as well as releasing titles that may have been out on DVD or VHS but had yet to see a Blu-ray bow, as well as finding obscure gems in there too. Beddows also noted how Network’s relationship with its customers meant the company could discover obscure gems and tell them ”you may not have heard of this, too may not have seen this, but it’s great”.'
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