We got the news that after decades in limbo never finished sequel of Grizzly(1976)- Grizzly II: Revenge (1983) is finally about to be released! Movie of course follows the aforementioned 10 foot Grizzly terrorizing young concert goers on a giant Woodstock- style festival. Freshly completed version just had it’s premiere in Los Angeles last week and we can hope to hear more details about the release soon.
With a stellar cast such as everyone’s favorite rascal Charlie Sheen, young George Clooney, Laura Dern and even John Rhys- Davies it’s incredible that the movie was just gathering dust all this time. The only way to view film was a bootleg that surfaced in ’07 ripped from VHS copy of the workprint copy. This version unfortunately had most of the the animatronic bear scenes left unfinished (due in part to the disappearance of the producer Joe Proctor).
Crewman in charge of the bear scenes had this this say on imdb -I had an agreement with Joe Proctor to direct the half size effects unit and all elements ( other than the man in a suit version which was almost complete) were finished and ready to shoot in coordination with the storyboard that I also supervised with artist Tony Beasley. The money dried up and the crew’s PERSONAL equipment was seized by the Government who told us they were held against non payment of production bills.-
Original movie producer Suzanne Csikos Nagy explains the sudden halt in production on the first day of filming the concert:
–The principal photography started on Monday. We had 45 days to finish the film. Everything was mapped out. Sunday was a break. Everybody relaxed when the call came to my home. My partner from Chicago was looking for my husband who was not in the film business and asked him to come to the InterContinental Hotel. When he returned he was pale and devastated.
I asked him, “What is wrong?” And he replied, “Joe, your partner, is leaving Hungary. If you want to save the movie, you do what you need to do. He is leaving in half an hour because there is no money for the production.” I thought this was a joke, but then I realized, I was left alone with 300 members of the film crew from 4 countries.-
With the footage restored and transferred to digital in summer of ’19 GBGB proceeded to film the missing scenes with assurance of preserving the authentic ’80s spirit of the movies. We hope to see it soon and confirm that that’s true. In the meantime you can see the new trailer right here.
You can also visit the official Grizzly 2 page for more information and updates: https://www.grizzly2revenge.com/
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