Director Mark Pellington's Going All The Way: The Director's Edit Arrives As Both Blu-ray And DVD Editions From Oscilloscope Laboratories On August 01

What would happen if you had a time machine and the wisdom gained in over two decades of filmmaking since your first theatrical film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival?

That question is answered on Aug. 1 by Oscilloscope Laboratories with the release of both DVD and Blu-ray editions of director Mark Pellington’s Going All the Way: The Director’s Edit.

Filmmaker Mark Pellington (Arlington Road, The Mothman Prophecies, Henry Poole is Here, Survive) didn’t have the benefit of a time machine, but while passing the time during the Covid pandemic he hit upon the idea of revisiting his 1997 Sundance Film Festival sensation, Going All the Way.   Genius!

It was a film adaptation of Dan Wakefield’s 1970 snapshot in time novel — Wakefield also provided the script — starring the likes of Ben Affleck, Rachel Weisz, Lesley Ann Warren, Jill Clayburgh, Jeremy Davis and Rose McGowan (who would ignite an industry-wide controversary in 2017 over sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein that took place at the very Sundance Film Festival where Going All the Way had debuted).

Sundance was in January of 1997.   The film finally got a limited theatrical release in September of that year by Polygram/USA and it would take until October of 2000 for the DVD to arrive (it has been out of print since then).

In reflection, Pellington felt that his initial presentation wasn’t quite right.   He had all of the film elements, including raw footage that was either cut or not used, so he did the “what if” in his mind and decided to recut — reshape — the film.

Not only is it rare — once the “ship sails” this sort of thing only happens for high profile films (a “director’s cut” adding back in footage that was cut for running time during the initial theatrical release, that sort of thing) — but Pellington went to the expense of doing a 4K film restoration of all of the elements to re-edit/re-assemble his “wisdom-gained” version of Wakefield’s best seller.

For all intents and purposes this is a brand-new film that Oscilloscope Laboratories is delivering to the home entertainment packaged media marketplace on Aug. 1.   Out of print on DVD, virtually unseen theatrically back in 1997 and featuring a dream cast — Rachel Weisz before The Mummy; Jeremy Davis before Saving Private Ryan; and, Ben Affleck before becoming a super star … plus Jill Clayburgh, Lesley Ann Warren and Rose McGowan.

Bonus goodies for Going All the Way: The Director’s Edit include deleted scenes, a three-part making-of documentary by Richard Schenkman, a video session with writer Dan Wakefield, callback footage with Nick Offerman (who plays Wilks … his film debut) and a press reel.