Darren Aronofsky to Release The Fountain Audio Commentary as a Podcast
Do people listen to audio commentaries on DVDs anymore? Well, not according to Warner Brothers they don’t. When Darren Aronofsky wanted to record a commentary track for the DVD release of The Fountain, the studio execs told him that they didn’t want to bother since it wouldn’t help sales. So now he’s taking matters into his own hands, as stated in a post on his MySpace blog:
everything at the studio was a struggle.
for instance: they didn’t want to do a commentary track cause they felt that it wouldn’t help sales.
i didn’t have it in me to fight anymore.
whatever.so:
niko, my friend who did the doc on the dvd came up with a novel idea.
we recorded a commentary track ourselves.
we’re gonna post it on a site soon, http coming soon.
you can play it and watch the flick and hopefully you’ll enjoy it.
He also goes on to say that the extras on the DVD are pretty light and that he has tons of supplementary material saved up for a special edition release, if someone is interested in putting one out (he hints that we should all write to Criterion). Either way, the audio commentary track as a podcast is a great idea (I’m assuming it will be available in MP3 format). I actually wish we could get more official commentaries as MP3s because it makes them more portable, and I for one would listen to a lot more if I could do so while on the go (the downside being, you don’t have the images for comparison). Since the recording will be independent of the studio, I also wonder if we’ll get more brutal honesty and dirt from Aronofsky when it comes to explaining the many hurdles he encountered during production of the film. Let’s hope! In the meantime, let me ask this… do you listen to audio commentary tracks, and are they a major selling point for you?
Comments (8)
don’t really listen to them. Only the one’s that Ron Moore puts out on Battlestar Galactica!
Posted by bert belgium on June 1st, 2007Excited beyond belief. Was truly pissed when I saw how light that disc was.
I’d gladly pay for it also.
I thought The Fountain was awesome beyond belief, and its myriad flaws only sorta ADDED to it.
Pardon the pun, but what criteria does Criterion use to judge what it’s putting out?
Posted by Charlie on June 1st, 2007Personally, I love commentary tracks. Why wouldn’t you want more insight into a movie that you enjoy?
Posted by Jeff on June 1st, 2007What a great idea!
I like the commentaries, and it seems like most Aronsofsky fans would.
Posted by Mike on June 1st, 2007Major selling point for sure. I’ll buy an otherwise bare-bones edition if it has a commentary, and sometimes I double-dip for one. It’s come to the point where if a release doesn’t have an audio commentary, I’m extremely pensive about buying it.
Posted by Henrik on June 1st, 2007I don’t listed to a lot of the commentaries but I’ve enjoyed Aronofsky’s and I think it’s great that he’s going to extend this to his fans.
I’m looking forward to it.
Posted by Marina on June 1st, 2007I love audio commentaries. For me, it’s the biggest selling point to me when it comes to buying a DVD. If a DVD is really expensive ($30 CDN or more) often I’ll choose to (or not to) buy it based on whether or not there’s commentary. Multiple commentaries (say one with director, one with cast, one with producer, etc.) sweetens the deal even more. Of course, I am always hoping the commentary will be good, especially in the case of movies that offer “controversial” subjects. It’s really disappointing when a DVD that really blew my mind has commentary that is dry, bland, boring, and almost seeming as if they want to avoid confrontations; as was (I felt) the case with the commentary for Jesus Camp, the long gaps of silence were especially bad and they offered nothing worth listening to. It was like they were sitting on a fence, not wanting to say what they really felt because then they might get in trouble.
In summary: I love commentary, except when it’s bad, and will choose to buy a DVD that has commentary that I may not have bought without the commentary feature.
Posted by Aaron Moore on June 2nd, 2007yeah!! I like audio-commentaries. but most of the are boring… the most interesting that I’ve heard till now are on the following dvd’s:
- Fight Club
Posted by Antonio on September 17th, 2007- The Killer
- Donnie Darko DC
- The Usual Suspects
- Natural Born Killers DC
- Alien
- La Haine
- From Hell
- Collateral
- 12 Monkeys
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