More Peter Watkins DVD Releases?

Following on the heels of the recent DVD release of Punishment Park regular ScreenAnarchy reader fired off a note to find out if there were any more Watkins releases coming and got himself an interesting response from the folks at Morningstar. Check it out:

"I asked Norm Wilner about why Morningstar Entertainment decided to release Watkins' Punishment Park a couple of weeks ago, and I thought you might be interested in how that came about. Anyway, the letter

Sorry it took so long to get back to you, but I've only just been able to find the answer to your Peter Watkins questions. Basically, it seems Morningstar got the gig because Watkins' people were referred to them by the director Ron Mann, who's worked with them a number of times and really liked the results.

And yes, there will be additional Watkins releases -- "Edvard Munch", "The War Game", "Culloden" and "The Commune" among them. Dates and specs have yet to be locked down, though; I wouldn't expect to see anything for a while. But at least we don't have to order his stuff from the UK anymore ...

Again, sorry for the delay ... hope it's of some help to you now.

Thanks for writing,
Norm Wilner

I'm somewhat familiar with Ron Mann's work, but I wasn't too thrilled with Grass and I don't know much about him to gauge his worth as a documentary filmmaker. Still, I thought it was interesting that Mr. Comic Book Confidential managed to convince Morningstar to release his stuff on R1. I wonder how Morningstar managed to get War Game on its long-list, considering the issues between BFI and Watkins.

It's sort of a small-interest thing, but perhaps the time for him is now. Wonder how the five-to-ten-hour films of his will do, though."

-Cameron