Arrow Video Says Sept. 2 Will Be The Street Date For A 4K Ultra HD Edition Of Director Stephen Hopkins' Lost In Space

Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a new 4K restoration (from the original camera negative) of director Stephen Hopkins’ 1998 sci-fi thriller, Lost in Space, lined up for release as a new 4K Ultra HD edition on Sept. 2.

Producer Irwin Allen, who gave us such theatrical delights as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, made an even bigger mark in the episodic television arena.   

He converted Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea into a hit series, followed it with Land of the Giants, and then in 1965 (four years before the first man landing on the moon) he launched the Robinson family on the Jupiter II in a quest to reach Alpha Centauri, but the mischievous Dr. Smith (we avoid the word “sinister” since he basically comic relief) gets the crew Lost in Space.

The action is supposed to take place in the future — October of 1997.   So in 1997, the Sci-Fi Channel held a much- publicized Lost in Space marathon and New Line Cinema announced that they would commit $70 million (their biggest production to date) to a theatrical version, with Stephen Hopkins as the director, who was on a roll with the likes of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Predator 2 and The Ghost and the Darkness.

The film “launched” in April of 1998 and was a success for New Line, even if the film critics at the time were Debbie-Downers on the big screen space adventures of the Robinsons and the tricky Dr. Smith (played by Gary Oldman), but genre fans gave it thumb’ up.

Bonus goodies for this 4K Ultra HD rollout from Arrow Video on Sept. 2 include two vintage commentary options — one with director Stephen Hopkins and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, and the second — a tag-team affair — featuring visual effects supervisors Angus Bickerton and Lauren Ritchie, director of photography Peter Levy, editor Ray Lovejoy and producer Carla Fry.

There are also deleted scenes, a blooper reel, seven new featurettes — “A Space Odyssey,” “Lights in the Sky,” “A Journey Through Time,” “Art of Space,” “Crafting Reality,” “Sound of Space” and “Lost But Not Forgotten in Space.”

Also included are the “The TV Years,” which is a Q&A session with the original 1960s cast, and two vintage featurettes — “Building the Special Effects” and “The Future of Space Travel.”