Prince of Persia Fans @DW.org

Jordan Mechner:


QUESTION: What were your feelings when you finally saw the film?
JORDAN MECHNER: Firstly the original Prince Of Persia was a character 40 pixels high on the Apple II screen, running and jumping. The technology at the time was quite primitive, I think in my mind I imagined a much grander spectacle, and to see Jake [Gyllenhaal] in the best shape of his life running around the rooftops of Morocco and doing parkour and all this stuff was more than I could imagine.

QUESTION: What initially drew you to the setting of Ancient Persia? And how does that culture and mythology inspire you?
Mechner: “I was inspired 25 years ago to make the game really by the tales of the Arabian Nights, and by old Persian legends like the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings. And also those great old Hollywood swashbuckling movies like the 1940 Thief of Baghdad, by Alexander Korda. As a kid I must have heard those stories, the storybook versions are in all of our cultural DNA. We know of that world without really knowing exactly where or when we first heard it.

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You can bring home the latest action-adventure film from super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer on both DVD and Blu-ray this September. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time will be released on both DVD and Blu-ray on September 14. The single-disc DVD will be priced at $29.99 SRP while they single-disc Blu-ray will be priced at $39.99 SRP and the three-disc DVD/Blu-ray combo pack, which includes a DVD, Blu-ray and Digital Copy, will be priced at $44.99 SRP. You can take a look at the cover art and special features below.

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It seems strange that filmmakers would not have much extra footage these days, when scenes can be shot digitally and the price of film is not a factor. But that is what Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time director Mike Newell is saying about the possibility of extra footage on the upcoming Blu-ray Disc and DVD releases.

Via Home Media Magazine, Newell says he added layers upon layers into the theatrical release the film, rather than cutting footage out, because that is how a Jerry Bruckheimer film (the film’s producer) would be made. However, Newell responded to the lack of deleted and extra footage saying, “we always add things that are fun and interesting for you guys to look at.”

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