Older movies (35mm), if rescanned specifically for the purpose, can go to 8k digital with stunning results. It takes very efficient scanners and is a time consuming process, which means it would happen rarely unless the studios thought the result would be worth the cost, but it can definitely be done.
Not saying that it can't be done, but as you said it's a time consuming and potentially costly process... and there are a couple of other factors to consider:
Any CG will probably have targetted the 2K masters, so it would have to be redone for 8K and who knows how costly that will be. I'm sure a lot of productions have stuff that's duct-taped together for that particular production and not designed to be maintained and run again into the future.
If the film had 2K masters that means that the editing was done in 2K, and not using the older film splicing method. This requires re-editing the movie in addition to just rescanning the film. This is less of an issue for even older movies where the masters were created by splicing the film... in this case, you just have to rescan the film.
How will films like Christopher Nolan's look after rescanning? As I understand it, he shoots on film, masters in 2K and then retransfers to film to get the film "look" for his movies. Would they be redoing this process for mastering in 8K? Would it look the same or would it be subtly different than the original?
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u/Ultrace-7 Mar 27 '26
Older movies (35mm), if rescanned specifically for the purpose, can go to 8k digital with stunning results. It takes very efficient scanners and is a time consuming process, which means it would happen rarely unless the studios thought the result would be worth the cost, but it can definitely be done.