No Flesh Shall Be Spared

Richard Stanley's Hardware

More good news today! One of my most wanted films is finally mooted to receive a proper DVD release later this year; at long last Richard Stanley's apocalyptic killer robot debut Hardware has been freed from studio wranglings and has now found a new home with Optimum Releasing. And that's not all - according to Richard's latest MySpace blog the film will also get a theatrical re-release!

"MGM and Optimum, Hardware's UK DVD distributor are proud to announce a major theatrical re-release of the original film and are striking several hundred new 35mm Dolby prints that will soon be finding their way into a cinema near you! The second coming of Mark 13 and a new beginning for this strange and terrible saga! What prompted MGM to afford my humble work official classic status and such Rolls Royce treatment at the eleventh hour is ultimately a mystery even to me..."

It gets better - in addition to prepping Vacation, a proposed £1 million feature starring none other than Bruce Campbell, Richard has also been writing a sequel:

"Since Hallow'een 2006 I have been working slavishly (literally round the clock, more often than not) on preparing the screenplay and storyboards for the second installment, currently referred to for the sake of expediency only by it's working title: Hardware II: Ground Zero. As intimated in the previous blog, it's the one I think I'll be remembered for although there are still a million miles of radioactive rough road between here and the chance to put the behemoth before camera. And behemoth it be, I promise! A serious slice of future history, detailing the break-up and growing balkanization of the former United States and the scramble to gain possession of its disintegrating nuclear stockpile. The mass production and tactical deployment of the Mark 13 Stormtrooper and Jill, Shades and the Nomad's continuing adventures in the 21st century are detailed with more ferocity, more sexuality, more drugs, more gags, louder music and worse manners than before. More humanity perhaps as well but then the characters are older now, more desperate and playing for higher stakes. Keep watching this space for further updates and fresh spoilers although don't hold it against me if I gently misdirect or even lie about salient plot features. I like to keep it fresh, you see. I like to keep it fresh..."

Even the end of the world has to start someplace!

Welcome back Richard Stanley.