Musician and writer Thomas Negovan has been working on a unique restoration of the infamous 1980 film Caligula for the past three years. He was given all of the original camera negatives and location audio, and commissioned to build a completely new edit to conform to the Gore Vidal script. And now, the restoration is finally complete.
The film was originally planned as an art film with an impressive cast (including Malcolm McDowell, Peter O'Toole, and Helen Mirren), and budget (twice that of Star Wars), but it was later marred when funder Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione took over, disregarded the original script, and added explicit sex scenes to the film without the consent of the other creators, resulting in a controversial and poorly reviewed release.
Not one frame of the new edit has ever been seen before, making this a truly unique and exciting project. He was able to create a new edit using only the original camera negatives and location audio. And according to Negovan, there wasn't a single shot that he wished they had from the original film. Negovan even made a five-minute video to explain what he has done, which you can check out for yourself.
