So who exactly owns the rights to all things Max? I imagine the ABC show is owned by Warners as they absorbed Lorimar the production company responsible but what about the rights to the character and likeness of Max?
I know the character was initially created for Britain's Channel 4 by record company Chrysalis who also produced both the first Max Headroom TV show - (that being a rock video show hosted by Max) as well as the original British TV movie "Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into The Future" which explained Max's origin and served as a template for the later ABC show. So, did Chrysalis sell the rights to Max completely or are the rights to the character split between them and the current owners of Lorimar? That in itself could make a release problematic.
I still have that Brit TV movie on VHS. It was I think one of the first sell-thru tapes to hit the shops in the UK. I also have the first season of the ABC series on VHS. Those six episodes were actually released on VHS for the UK video rental market shortly after airing in the US.
Then of course there are possible technical issues. As I understand it the ABC Max series, like producer Phillip DeGuerre's reboot of the Twilight Zone from two years earlier, though shot on 35mm film was edited on video and with lots of the FX shots also being added using clunky video post production techniques. Would any DVD producer hoping to release Max actually have anything other than 18 year old 1 inch NTSC masters to fall back on?
Granted even if ABC's 1 inch masters are the only available source I still can't imagine it looking as degraded as the DVD release of DeGuerre's Twilight Zone. Max was I believe the first US TV show to be shot on film at a frame rate of 30 fps.
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