Stop Making Sense 2023 Restoration

In 2023, the 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense would receive a restoration as well as theatrical and home re-release. Alongside a re-release of the film, an expanded edition of the soundtrack was also re-released.

Background

As part of the deal with the film's original distributor, Cinecom, the ownership of the rights to Stop Making Sense reverted back to Byrne, Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison shortly before the 40th anniversary of its original release. Hoping to commemorate the occasion, the group sought out potential companies to partner with on a re-release, eventually settling on A24. A24 announced they had obtained the distribution rights in March 2023, and revealed plans to release a 4k restoration in theaters the following September.

Procuring Original Materials

James Mockoski, a restoration supervisor who primarily worked with Zoetrope studios, was called in by A24. Although seeking out as much of the original materials as possible for the restoration, it was soon reveled that the original negative for the film was missing. For the 1999 re-release of the film, had used scans made from a "copy of a copy" of the film that Demme had donated to the University of Michigan. Mockoski remarked in a Rolling Stone write up of the restoration that "I wanted to know what they were working with, and she told me that the Talking Heads’ manager [Tomas Cookman] had got everything in from the previous distributor. They sent me a list, and there were almost no film elements included. There might have been, like, one screening print, and that was it. I asked, ‘So, where’s the negative?’ And the answer was, ‘Well, it should all be there.’ Which was … not quite the case. Not at all.”

After an extensive search, the original negative for the film was found in an MGM film vault, despite MGM not having been involved in the making of the film. The story goes that Mockoski, after exhausting all other options, and even beginning some restoration work on the "copy of a copy" film, called a contact he knew at the vault. Although the vault doubted they had the film in the collection, they still agreed to check. After about 10 minutes, Mockoski recieved a text message from the vault with a photo of the original negative and the message "It’s just been sitting here for 30 years. It’s never been checked out."

Similarly, Eric Thorgren and Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison planned to create new Dolby Atmos sound mixes, initially using materials from the previous distributor and Rhino Records. However, they ran into difficulty when they discovered they did not have the original audience tracks: the original audio was stored in the library of Todd-AO, which had since gone out of business and its building demolished. Eventually, it was discovered that Todd-AO's collection was claimed by Sony, who transported it to a warehouse in Kansas, where the original audio tracks were found in time to be included in the restoration. Using these original tracks, as well as the post-production overdubs originally overseen by Demme to fix mistakes in the film's recording, Thorgren and Harrison painstakingly remastered the film's sound.

IMAX Release

The new restoration premiered on September 11, 2023 at Cineplex’s Scotiabank IMAX Theatre in Toronto as part of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, followed by a Q&A hosted by Spike Lee with Byrne, Weymouth, Frantz and Harrison. This reunion marked the first time since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 that all four band members had appeared together publicly.

The initial screening and Q&A were also simulcasted across the world at 165 different IMAX theaters. This would set a record for IMAX's highest grossing live event at the time, earning $640,839, and beating out the previous record holder, Brandi Carlile: In The Canyon Haze – Live from Laurel Canyon from September 2022.

The film entered first as an exclusive IMAX exhibition on September 22, 2023, before heading to conventional theaters on September 29, 2023, globally.

Soundtrack Re-Release

See Also: Stop Making Sense (Album)

Rhino Entertainment also released a new remaster of the film's soundtrack, which includes the complete concert for the first time, on vinyl and digitally on August 18, 2023.