Paramount Pictures isn't the only studio that can celebrate is 100th anniversary with a fancy new logo and a bunch of other over-the-top celebrations. Universal Pictures is also celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and even though their output in the last few years hasn't been all that spectacular, they've got a lot of past classics to look back on and celebrate this year. The studio announced today that they'll be restoring 13 of their classic titles, including Out of Africa, Jaws, The Sting, Schindler's List and To Kill a Mockingbird, which is also debuting on Blu-Ray for the first time this month.
On the theatrical side, the studio will be debuting an updated animated logo in front of The Lorax, which opens on March 2. It won't just be a one-time deal like the Paramount 100th anniversary logo, but it will be used on all the studio releases going forward-- you can see a still version of the new logo at the top of this post. There's a lot of nostalgic weight tied to the Universal logo, as there is for pretty much any studio logo, so inevitably people are going to cringe when they see the face of the studio change again. But hey, it's another thing to get nostalgic about and tell kids they missed out on, and maybe 20 years from now a filmmaker will revive the current logo as a video game and make everyone nostalgic all over again.
Though we might not see the evidence of the film restorations for awhile-- though Blu-ray releases of Jaws and E.T. are planned for later this year-- they might be the most important part of the celebration, since older films like this can deteriorate and vanish if they're not taken care of. So if you start rolling your eyes at all the pomp and circumstance as Universal congratulates itself for a century in business, just remember there's some pure good coming out of this as well.
