Turner Putting Classic Movies Back On The Big Screen

Turner Classic Movies and Turner Entertainment Co. plan to rerelease theatrically many of the 3,400-plus titles from its MGM, RKO and pre-1950 Warner Bros. films.

The library films, which will go out under a new “Turner Classic Movies on the Big Screen” brand, include not only such perennials as “Gone With the Wind” (1939) and “Citizen Kane” (1941) but such rarely screened titles as John Boorman’s 1967 thriller “Point Blank” and Robert Wise’s 1963 scare movie “The Haunting.”

Initial plans, the company said Tuesday, call for more than 250 bookings including such titles as “Showboat” (both the 1936 and 1951 versions); “Now, Voyager” (1942); and “Blow Up” (1966). These titles will play in such markets as New York, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Cambridge., Mass., and Ann Arbor, Mich.

The first “TCM on the Big Screen” is set for October in Los Angeles with a 10-day classic film festival featuring Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” (1959) and William Wyler’s epic “Ben-Hur” (1959), presented in 70mm.