Former P5 Writer Talks, More Ravager Confusion

Writer Stephen Romano, who penned an unused Phantasm V, Phantasm remake and the Phantasm comic, has begun unveiling "an epic three-part confessional" on his lost sequel effort, Phantasm Forever, over at Dread Central. This was the lost sequel from which the infamous table read came from. Information about this project has always been extremely hard to come by, so the fact that Stephen is now going to tell his "intensely personal" side of it in an "in-depth" manner is terrifically exciting news! The first part of his confessional is now online, with the second hitting next week. The Phantasm world is and always has been tightly controlled by Don Coscarelli, so the fact that we're getting such a special insight makes this a unique gift to phans.

In other news, Starway International has officially registered to present Phantasm Ravager at the American Film Market, a standard path for gaining distribution on Phantasm sequels. Starway's production listing, which was updated a few days ago, still lists Ravager as being in post-production and not set for completion until next year, which doesn't exactly jive with what cast has been saying. Furthermore, Starway lists that the new sequel was "filmed in secret over the past three years."

Why is Coscarelli sticking to this three year number? I literally showed you a picture from this film back in early 2009, which is more along the line of six years, not three. I haven't gotten any memo that I should be playing along with the new official story yet, so until then I'll just go with, y'know, reality. Something tells me this won't be the last instance of Ravager's public presentation not lining up with how things actually are. The next year is going to be interesting.

Also, the sequel's AFM listing mentions that the five Phantasm films will soon be available in HD for licensing internationally, but makes no mention of domestic. Might this mean Ravager and the three sequels (one, three and four) that Coscarelli controls have already found a home here in the states??