Exclusive: PTA Working on 'Punch-Drunk' Blu-ray

Wednesday afternoon Sony Pictures Home Entertainment hosted a small group of journalists and industry insiders at an event promoting the forthcoming release of The Da Vinci Code Extended Cut 2-Disc Set. In addition to providing display stations to demonstrate how consumers can register their Blu-rays in order to earn points towards free Sony merchandise, as well as participate in BD-Live bonus features, a handful of executives were on hand to discuss some of the upcoming releases to be offered by the studio – including Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love.

Following a formal presentation, I had a chance to talk briefly with SPHE Senior Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Lexine Wong, who used Anderson's tribute to Adam Sandler as an example of their commitment to working with filmmakers for the best possible content and presentation on their discs. "When it comes to the picture quality, I think we're purists about that," Wong said. "Depending on the film, we work with the talent quite a bit. We're looking at a couple of films right now with different talent. Like Punch-Drunk Love, for instance. Paul Thomas Anderson has been working on restoring the master. It's been taking a while and he's sitting through it and it's his eye and his direction on what that master is supposed to look like in high definition."

Wong didn't confirm a release date, but she indicated that the mastering process was finished and they were now determining what extras would be included on the Blu-ray. "As soon as it was done, we got a call from the post group and Paul Thomas saying, 'okay, it's done.'" She continued. "Now, what are we going to do, right? So we have legacy added-value that we can up-res; maybe we have to take [another] look at the source material and start again. So it just depends on the product, but we do work with the talent a lot and at the end of the day, we stay true to what the original source was."

The original two-disc release featured only a few extras, including Philip Seymour Hoffman's hilarious "mattress man" commercial, and a gallery of the beautiful Jeremy Blake artwork used as interstitials in the film. Sadly, Blake committed suicide in 2007, but the forthcoming Blu-ray might be an opportunity for Anderson to discuss the significance of the artist's work on the film, and deconstruct the intersection of his own storytelling with Blake's moving, hypnotic and gorgeous installations. It also goes without saying that his fans would love a full commentary track, as Anderson declined to record them for both Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood.