So, not only are we getting brand new original trilogy era goodness in the form of Rogue One ($388,125,599 worldwide and counting) but it appears that a 4K, hi-def version of the 1977 original is living on a hard drive somewhere in San Francisco.
Speaking with Little White Lies about Rogue One, director Gareth Edwards mentioned the existence of the 4K version.
“On day one, we were in Lucasfilm in San Francisco with Industrial Light and Magic and John[Knoll], our supervisor, he said that they’ve got a brand new 4K restoration print of ‘A New Hope’ — it had literally just been finished. He suggested we sit and watch it.”
20th Century Fox owns the rights to the original film in perpetuity due to Fox paying for the production, marketing and release of the first film as opposed to all following episodes which were financed by Lucasfilm and released by Fox. Is it outside the bounds of possibility that Fox could release this 4K version next year, to capitalise on the 40th anniversary?
And to our friends at ILM – please give the other trilogies the same treatment. Believe us, we will eat them up like wookiee cookies and blue milk.
