Arthouse distributors Kino Lorber have responded to David Lynch’s criticism of their upcoming Blu-ray release of his 1997 thriller Lost Highway. The Twin Peaks director took to Twitter over the weekend to call the film company out over its restoration of the film, which didn’t meet his exacting standards.
“Dear Twitter friends,” Lynch begins, as he does with all of his tweets, “A Blu-ray of LOST HIGHWAY will be released very soon. It was made from old elements and NOT from a restoration of the original negative. I hope that a version from the restoration of the original negative will happen as soon as possible.”
Kino Lorber’s re-release of the film, starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette, was initially advertised as a revamp of the original negative and the company claims in its response to Lynch’s criticism that he did not show interest in the project when first approached. “Once we knew he was not interested in working with us,” the company said in a statement, “we had no choice, but to go ahead with the current Universal master and the few extras we had already produced and acquired.”
The film distributors add: “To our surprise, the master in question was a very good one, so we were happy to release it with some extras. We found out later that the extras and packaging also had to be approved by him (not the norm) and we sent email after email without one response.” The statement adds that the company is still a “huge” fan of Lynch and proud to release one of his masterpieces on Blu-ray.