After many years of waiting, James Cameron’s “The Abyss” may finally be coming home.
Cameron’s epic 1989 sci-fi underwater feature remains one of the last ‘holy grails’ of home video – a feature whose last official disc release was a non-anamorphic DVD over twenty years ago.
In the years since, both Cameron and 20th Century Studios’ Home Entertainment division essentially blamed each other for a Blu-ray release being stalled for much of the past decade. Cameron’s commitments to the “Avatar” sequels have also kept him busy.
To date the only HD version out there is a decent transfer of the less well-regarded theatrical cut which popped up on streaming on HBO, Netflix and Starz a while back. Though it’s a start, it’s still a long way from the proper 4K Dolby Vision disc transfer of the special edition many fans want.
Every now and then comes an update that offers hope but never really seems to go anywhere. In 2016, Cameron himself told Variety journalist Kris Tapley that a new 4K scan had taken place: “We’ve done a wet-gate 4K scan of the original negative, and it’s going to look insanely good. We’re going to do an authoring pass in the DI for Blu-ray and HDR at the same time.” However nothing seemed to eventuate from that.
In 2019 digital intermediate colourist Skip Kimball did a social media posting indicating he was working on the release, but then the Disney acquisition of Fox seemed to throw various home video release plans into disarray.
Then this time last year Cameron, promoting his coffee table book “Tech Noir” collecting his artwork over the years, told Space.com he personally supervised a new transfer himself because “Mikael [Salomon] did such a beautiful job with the cinematography on that film”. At the time, he had finished that transfer a few months earlier so it has been ready for a little over a year now.
Now, French journalist Arthur Cios has revealed on Twitter that following his video interview with Cameron this week for “Avatar: The Way of Water,” he asked the filmmaker off camera when a 4K UHD release of “The Abyss” is coming. The response? (translated from French): “He told me that he had a new master and that it would be released by March 2023 at the latest”.
The reporter adds it wasn’t clear if Cameron was referring to either a 4K or Blu-ray release. In addition to that, long-time The Digital Bits reporter Bill Hunt adds that his own studio/industry sources this past week told him essentially the same thing about a Q1 2023 release window.
Could we finally see it? As multiple postings on social media have said – after being burned so many times over the promise of this release, many simply won’t believe it’s happening until the disc is in their hands.
Even before that, questions remain about the quality of the print, what versions of the film will be available, and will the hour-long making-of documentary “Under Pressure” be included? With Disney generally avoiding ‘back catalogue’ physical releases of late, scepticism remains understandably high.
For those who haven’t seen “The Abyss,” the film follows a civilian diving team being tasked with locating a lost nuclear submarine along the edge of an abyssal trench. The group is forced to include a bunch of Navy SEALs to help in the rescue, but the investigation reveals the presence of something not of this world living at the base of the trench.
Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Michael Biehn co-star in the film, which boasted ground-breaking special effects and incredible underwater photography.
