Studiocanal has commissioned the 4K restoration of Paul Verhoeven’s 1992 cult erotic thriller “Basic Instinct,” which will be released in multiple territories.
The film was restored through 2019 and 2020 from the original 35MM negative and supervised by the director himself, with some bonus material from Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas.
The restored version will soon be launched in France theatrically, through the banner Carlotta, and on home entertainment on June 16. The movie will also be released in cinemas in Australia and New Zealand on June 17, followed by a theatrical roll-out in the U.S. handled by Rialto Pictures.
Studiocanal will also launch the film on Ultra HD, Blu-Ray, DVD and Steelbook editions in the U.K. on June 14; Germany on June 17, Australia on July 7, and New Zealand on July 14.
The company tapped Flore Maquin, the French graphic artist behind the Cannes Film Festival poster designs of 2018 and 2019, to create two artworks (pictured) to promote the release of the restored “Basic Instinct.” (Poster images below.)
Along with the restoration, Studiocanal has also delivered a one-off documentary, “Basic Instinct, Sex, Death & Stone,” which premiered on French TV in December and is being sold globally to broadcasters.
The documentary, created by Studiocanal, TMC and Rockyrama, includes exclusive interviews and personal anecdotes captured in 2019 and 2020 with Verhoeven, Stone, Douglas, editor Frank J. Urioste, writer Joe Eszterhas and cinematographer Jan de Bont. The docu will be included in the special bonus feature on the home entertainment releases.
Speaking about the lengthy restoration process, Studiocanal project manager Sophie Boyer said the team at Hiventy Laboratory noticed a problem with the negative that was used at the start. “We quickly realized that the negatives corresponded to the short version of the film” and that “some shots from the most erotic scenes were censored in the United States.”
“We went looking for these cuts: their negatives had disappeared, but we found them in the internegative. Thanks to this, we were able to restore the full length version of the film, the only version that Paul Verhoeven wanted to have restored,” explained Boyer.
