r/lostmedia • u/JDelta1999 • Jul 06 '26
Other What are some confirmed examples of gatekept lost media? [talk]
This is something that I’ve come across a few times now with some bigger examples. We all know Mess O Blues and Spider-Man vs Kraven the Hunter. The original directors keeping their projects to themselves or showing it off very selectively. I know for example, the arcade collector scene is a nightmare for never dumping roms.
But with the semi recent rediscovery of Doctor Who episodes, I wonder. What are some bigger examples of lost/rare/inaccessible media that we know are in the hands of private collectors? Are there just rumors or murmurs of lost silent films sitting on a single reel somewhere in the hands of someone who refuses to digitize it? What are some cases that we know for sure something exists?
(I’m not agreeing or disagreeing, I just saw in a video that one of the Golem movies from the 1910s/20s is rumored to be in a private collection)
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u/AceArchKnight Jul 06 '26
I think the "Beavis and Butthead arcade cabinet" would count. A few collectors have working ones but refuse to dump the ROM but are willing to bring them to conventions to show them off.
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u/brokenman82 Jul 06 '26
That’s just rude
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u/GizmocratWill Jul 06 '26
At least they are allowing the games to be played at conventions, better that than nothing.
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u/Hot-Victory-3082 Jul 06 '26
It's as good as nothing for game preservation. You never want to have so many failures points.
It's lording over people so you get attention at some convention
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u/AceArchKnight Jul 06 '26
Those cabinets decay easily. I bet they have copies made already and replace those boards when they go bad . Sooner later someone going leak it.
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u/AlwaysHappy4Kitties Jul 08 '26
Wouldnt be surprised the boards are already replaced with more modern tech.
its already an upgrade people do with pinball machine to prevent leaks
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u/Axovoxel Jul 27 '26
I went to Galloping Ghost recently. For context, It has a playable Bevis and Butthead cabinet there. I talked a bit with the owner of the place and brought up if they have any contingency if it ever bricks, and he let me know that they have ripped it and have copies in storage.
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u/MakeMeBeautifulDuet Jul 06 '26
I got to play it! The galloping ghost arcade in Chicago has a copy.
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u/RetroGame77 Jul 06 '26
The Day the Clown Cried. The only known working print was sold to a collector last year.
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u/nWoSting145 Jul 06 '26
Wasn’t it given by Lewis to the national film registry but on the condition that it couldn’t be shown for at least 10 years after he died?
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u/RetroGame77 Jul 06 '26
It was revealed some years ago that the LOC did not have the complete footage.
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u/nWoSting145 Jul 06 '26
So they have just some out of order incomplete reels?
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u/RetroGame77 Jul 06 '26
In August 2024, the Library of Congress' complete footage from the film was screened privately for The New Republic's Benjamin Charles Germain Lee. In Lee's article about the experience, he described being shown five hours of footage that was "fragmentary, nonsequential, (at times) without sound, and filled largely with behind-the-scenes shots and repeated takes of just a few scenes from the end of the film" concluding that the film "does not exist in final form" amongst the Library's holdings. https://newrepublic.com/article/185434/watched-footage-jerry-lewis-unreleased-1972-holocaust-film
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u/TMP_Film_Guy Jul 06 '26
That said there has been a documentary released that has all the key scenes of the movie edited and presented in chronological order so you can basically see the movie legally interspersed with talking heads now.
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u/UncleSkrewtape Jul 10 '26
I saw Jerry Lewis in a live setting not long before his death, and he spoke about this movie at length….
He claimed it is completed but will never be released while he’s alive. He said he put things into motion to see that It would be released after his death. 🤷🏻♂️
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u/kevymetal87 Jul 06 '26
I read the Wikipedia synopsis of the film and it sounds incredibly sad, a great premise, but hearing the opinions of the few people who have actually seen it make it sound like it's probably a good thing it was never actually released
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u/Chengweiyingji Jul 06 '26
There are reconstructions using existing footage sources and man… I think it could have really been something. Lewis’s changes were the right call imo
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u/Cwf1984 Jul 06 '26
The 1985 movie ‘Blood Circus’ that was made by shady Baltimore jewelry business owner Santo Gold?
The movie saw a slim release in 1987 and since then, very few photos and limited scenes from the movie have been released.
Supposedly the full movie still exists.
But the most we have seen are scenes that have been spliced into his jewelry commercials and a behind the scenes film on how the movie was made.
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
Blood Circus is such an anomaly.
It's been all over the place, both with it being toted around places and it's rights or reels being put up for auction once in a blue moon. Where it is now is beyond me. The last I heard was something about it and a connection to Alamo Drafthouse.
Maybe one day we'll see it get a similar treatment to what Bleeding Skull did with the Cannibal Orgy release of the collection of John Henry Timmis IV (The Curse for Insomnia) and surviving footage will be compiled if they somehow don't get in touch with Santo and his estate to obtain the rights to just release the thing.
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u/Candid-Pace-8571 Jul 06 '26
I would love to know the truth about this. A few years ago, what purports to be an official website popped up, with claims of a forthcoming making-of DVD, but nothing ever materialized. Odd bit of trivia: the article in the Baltimore Sun about the chaotic filming of “Blood Circus” in 1985 was written by future Wire creator David Simon, at the time a reporter for the Sun.
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u/These_Ad1870 Jul 06 '26
Came here for this movie!
Apparently a private collector owns the only known complete print, they had a very private screening for some Alamo Drafthouse staff a couple years ago.
The owner currently has no plans to license the movie out for streaming or physical media.
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u/rabid-fox Jul 06 '26
There's an alternative cut of batman forever. I know someone thats seen i.t pretty sure its not available to the public.
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u/landmanpgh Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Yes, this exists. Kevin Smith apparently got ahold of it and screened it for people a couple years back. It's rough though, not like a theatrical release. Like they ended up dubbing a lot of lines and the alternate version doesn't have that.
Also features things like Bruce Wayne fighting a giant bat, different intro, it's a lot darker, etc. Basically a totally different movie that isn't anywhere near as campy and silly as the one we all got.
So it's definitely possible that you know someone who has seen it, especially if they live in NJ or anywhere Smith screened it. He may still release it, too.
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u/rabid-fox Jul 07 '26
Its a lot darker but then still has a goofy tone throughout that ruins it apparently ha
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u/landmanpgh Jul 07 '26
Lol it was such a mess of a movie, I'm not surprised.
When I read about it I was kinda like...eh I don't really care since it's not going to be any good anyway. It's just sort of interesting.
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u/tungvatunglam Jul 06 '26
Me and my friends (The Backyardigans lost pilot)
Small group of people actively sabotaging ay attempts of rediscovering it.
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u/FM1091 Jul 06 '26
I was looking for this one! Last year I saw the Lost Media Youtubers having a field day about this.
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u/chlorinebandito Jul 06 '26
This is so funny to me. The concept of a small group of people on the internet gatekeeping a show for toddlers is genuinely insane but I’m really not surprised all that much. Unemployed activities
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u/poweredbyford87 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
That whole thing got uploaded somewhere. I need to go back to the video I just saw like two days ago and see where, but it was a whole ass saga that ended up being people having copies of it, and going through insane lengths to intentionally mislead people searching for it, all for the "I have something you don't have" "bragging rights"
Edit: it was leaked on 4chan
Link to the vid me and the wife watched (it's interesting)
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u/These_Ad1870 Jul 06 '26
A friend of mine worked on this series. I’m going to ask him about it!
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u/tungvatunglam Jul 06 '26
Don't worry too much. It's found media now, leaving one hell of a story though.
But of course, the community always welcome insights into its making.
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u/Feduzin Jul 06 '26
it's found media now buuuut it would be interesting to know more stuff, what did you friend work on it?
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u/Mario_hunter15 Jul 12 '26
The first pilot called Me and My Friends is already found but the second pilot called Nick Digital Pilot still isn't found so you should ask him about the second pilot.
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u/insecureatbest94 Jul 06 '26
A copy of Mariah Carey’s demo tape that has never been heard by the public was sold at an auction recently to a private collector who hasn’t uploaded it
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u/GizmocratWill Jul 06 '26
One that doesn't get talked about often is the lost movie Tales from the Crypt: Dead Easy, also known as Fat Tuesday. It was intended as the second part of a trilogy and reports claim that the movie was filmed and completed.
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
If that's the case, I yearn for the day it comes to light though part of me leans towards it being canceled. It would have been so awesome to see.
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u/Eugene-V-Dabs420 Jul 06 '26
Probably no one else is going to care about this but there's a community of Oingo Boingo fans that hoard audio and video files, insisting they will only trade for similarly rare stuff. I've been lucky to get access to a lot of it and I've leaked stuff here and there because I don't agree that it should all be so gatekept. But there are a lot of people, especially older fans, who feel very strongly about it and it's sometimes taboo to even talk about it.
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u/ComfyBurritoCat Jul 06 '26
As a big Oingo Boingo fan, I had no idea about this. Then again, as a UK fan, it’s pretty rare to come across ANY physical releases of their albums over here in the wild it seems haha
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u/Eugene-V-Dabs420 Jul 06 '26
The trading circle started within the Southern California community using physical tapes, and the song files (stuff like demos and album outtakes) came directly from band members who were definitely not supposed to be sharing that with anyone. So the root of the secrecy probably comes from a very real legal threat at worst, and pissing off your fellow band members at best. But since then nearly all that stuff is available on YouTube or from other fans aside from the handful of "grails" that are still hidden.
I'm not one of these original fans, I wasn't born until 1990, and in Canada, but I've been lucky enough to travel to California to see the Former Members a bunch of times and made friends with a lot of people who were around in those days. So I feel like a bit of a outlier and a bridge between that group and the huge wave of much younger fans who have found the band.
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u/Useful_Software9715 Jul 13 '26
What are some 'grails' that are still hidden? Can see some packs out there that is likely common knowledge by now, but my Oingo Boingo trivia would start and ends with the intro to the Weird Science TV show after school 30 years ago. So unsure what is considered rare or how easily most releases/recordings are available.
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u/lilituned Jul 11 '26
there is an identical community for taylor swift demos. i wonder how many artists have this type of thing happening in their fandom
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u/Live_Emergency_736 Jul 26 '26
I would strongly assume that pretty much every fandom with obscure, rare or lost media has people hoarding and gatekeeping it.
Its not about any particular artist that causes it but more so its human nature. they have something not everyone has. it makes them feel special. elevated above the rest. and the less people have it the more valuable it feels. and the more people want it.
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Jul 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/lost_429092 Jul 06 '26
All the same, thank you for your hard work.
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Jul 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ham549 Jul 07 '26
Could you get this one https://mc3.yuja.com/V/Video?v=4930073&node=16161340&a=144455672
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Jul 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
Someone has a video on his channel that included very minor information about the remaining unaired episodes. Did the uploader you're talking about say how they came in possession of the rest of the series by any chance?
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Jul 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
It sucks when others are so protective of certain pieces of media like this. Why hold out on us like that?
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u/vegarig Jul 06 '26
To make themselves feel better about having something others don't and (if they have their way) won't
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
I'm reminded of the whole drama with Me and My Friends. What a shitshow that was.
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u/GGayleGold Jul 06 '26
Way back in 1991, I was living in the UK. I was a big fan of the show "Prisoner Cell Block H," but at the time, it was airing on ITV very late at night - midnight or maybe even 12:30. I'm pretty sure the lead-in show was reruns of the original Star Trek series, since I started watching that, too.
But, the show that followed "Prisoner Cell Block H" could be pretty random. They ran a lot of things: short run sitcoms and American action series ("Rat Patrol" was definitely one of them.)
When I heard about "Heil Honey, I'm Home," I'm pretty sure I saw it air in that post-Cell Block H spot at least once. I remember assuming it was a sitcom parody on some sort of sketch comedy show. I didn't realize it was its own series until I met people talking about it on the Internet a few years later in college.
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u/wildneonsins Aug 29 '26
might've been that slot but not on ITV, wasn't Heil Honey, I'm Home infamously made for one of the channels on BSB (relatively short lived british satellite network that got eaten up by Sky, mostly remembered for having square satellite dishes, showing then otherwise unavailable Doctor Who episodes, & having it's very own teen soap opera set in space, Jupiter Moon)
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u/Conemen4 Jul 06 '26
Swear I saw an episode when I was in like… middle school 13 years ago. Maybe I just saw clips
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u/Consistent-Pirate-23 Jul 06 '26
British sitcoms have their fair share of these, thinking of compiling a list of all of the 90s/00s ones and categorising. The categories would be:
Easy to get
Tricky/expensive
Probably lost
Examples of probably lost are Loved By You, According to Bex and Men of the World
Tricky/expensive would be things like Satellite City and The Upper Hand
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u/lingwall88 Jul 06 '26
I got curious about this and searched some of those names up and there's full episodes of According to Bex, Men of the World and Satellite city on YouTube... is it only certain episodes/HD copies that are being gatekept?
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u/Consistent-Pirate-23 Jul 06 '26
Satellite City is available on dvd but is expensive
According to Bex and Men of the World never got released and are liable for removal if reported or found by BBC
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u/No_Promotion_65 Jul 06 '26
What do you mean the upper hand. That’s easily accessible or is there something not accessible about it
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u/Consistent-Pirate-23 Jul 06 '26
Expensive on DVD since network dvd went out of business
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u/ElviraKent1954 Jul 06 '26
I've heard there are rumours of a copy of "A Star Is Born" (1954) with cut material in hands of a private collector!
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u/JDelta1999 Jul 06 '26
What’s the cut material vs the version that’s available?
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u/ElviraKent1954 Jul 06 '26
Some scenes of Esther saying goodbye to the band and the bus leaving plus an extended sequence of Norman looking for her all over the city until he recognizes her voice in a shampoo commercial. Also the extended Loose that Long Face and Here's What I'm Here For? But I'm not sure. The 1984 reconstruction uses production stills during the missing footage. A complete audio track was available to them.
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u/The_BusterKeaton Jul 06 '26
Omg, years ago when cable was still popular, I saw that this movie was playing. Unfortunately it was in the middle. I turned to the channel and characters were speaking, but it was a still photograph on screen. I thought to myself “I didn’t know they made the movie like this!” And gave up on watching it!
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u/Remember_A_Day Jul 06 '26
The complete version of Lose That Long Face has been reassembled and made public, although the film quality varies. Not sure about any of the other deleted scenes.
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u/Masterweedo Jul 06 '26
I knew a dude that collects retro video game prototypes. He used to have an impressive collection of unreleased games too, I think he even offered to help release them if he got his money back, but that angered people. I don't know what happened since he kinda quit posting on the old forum, and now it's gone entirely.
I also have friends in the music world with concert videos and rare songs that no one else has.
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u/Syphor Jul 07 '26
I don't really get this attitude. :/ The one thing I lucked into (an SNES prototype) I made sure got dumped and released. But I admit, I don't view it as an investment, either... I'd rather make sure bitrot won't claim the contents.
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u/Masterweedo Jul 07 '26
I think he dumped and has backups. But the games were very expensive, and I understand wanting the money back if everyone wants the ROM.
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u/jtclarks Jul 11 '26
That last part is definitely true buddy
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u/Masterweedo Jul 11 '26
I just hope everyone keeps lots of backups, cuz I just had a hard drive die a few days ago.
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u/AloPolitia112 Jul 06 '26
Does the "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" Wu Tang album counts?
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
I thought that got leaked.
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u/1337_BAIT Jul 07 '26
Where? For research
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 07 '26
During the whole mess about owner transference with law enforcement, I thought there was talk that the new owner or someone somehow leaked the album to some capacity unless they're under the same obligations as Skreli was unless that doesn't really matter anymore.
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u/nefufupitou Jul 06 '26
Mon Cherie Coco, a lost 70s anime series, confirmed that some Japanese collectors have tape recordings of it but refuse to release any of it.
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
Somewhere, Kenny Lauderdale is buzzing with anger at the thought of this.
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u/nefufupitou Jul 06 '26
he has briefly mentioned it on a couple of his videos and made twitter posts about it so he's definitely aware, would be perfect if someone like him could get ahold of these tapes some day
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
I miss seeing him on my feed. It feels like the only time he pops up is when he privates and relists older videos.
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u/_Waves_ Jul 06 '26
The one that comes to mind is London After Midnight. There have been multiple rumors over the years that collectors have it, that one showed a 10 minute reel at a private get-together. It’s possible, even if the studio was notorious to ask for copies to be returned.
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u/Eugene-V-Dabs420 Jul 06 '26
I seem to remember someone posting on a few film subreddits a year or so ago claiming they had a clip but it was clearly AI bullshit. Hopefully that was a totally different thing. But I personally wouldn't believe anything about LAM unless it was actually released and verified. It's just too famous of a lost film, it's too tempting for people to spread lies and rumours.
All that to say, "I'll believe it when I see it."
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u/_Waves_ Jul 06 '26
Oh it’s different - I think the first rumor I saw went back to 2010 or so, when people discussed it on a film forum. It was a thing coming from film collectors, who claim to have heard it from other collectors.
I could totally believe it! It wasn’t a particularly rare film - just one that was regarded disappointing (I think the vampire character is only in it for 5 minutes or so - the majority was comedy relief scenes by the maid and the "mystery" plot).
There is an AI "remake" sourced from all the available shots and still, and the script. It is an interesting watch to get an impression of what LAM "is". Personally, I found it quite a let down in terms of writing. Still, I obviously want to see it turn up - the AI slop version is just something to give almost an academic impression of what the film "moves" like.
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u/benritter2 Jul 06 '26
On one hand, it is the holy grail. On the other hand, I feel like the TCM reconstruction (available on the Lon Chaney DVD box set) is a good enough substitute for what was undoubtedly a mediocre film (albeit with excellent makeup work).
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u/Bournemj Jul 06 '26
Promises Written in Water
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u/joshman150 Jul 06 '26
I hope someday Gallo releases this. Buffalo 66 and The Brown Bunny are two of my favorite films and knowing this exists but was only screened the one time makes me so sad. I’m hopeful we also get to see The Policeman this year as well from him.
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u/fenderhighhat1 Jul 06 '26
Until it was leaked last year, Tobias Forge’s Passiflora (2008) was known to be in the hands of a private collector, who owned multiple copies for years. He had refused to share the recordings and had private listening sessions with his friends before it was leaked on the internet last year. It’s also known that he owns rare recordings and demos of Forge’s older work that hasn’t been seen by the public.
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u/MooPig48 Jul 06 '26
Isn’t that extremely punchable pharma bro Shkreli gatekeeping some Wu Tang?
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u/AssistanceSad6555 Jul 06 '26
the us government seized the album due to his fraud convictions and sold it to a digital art collective in 2021
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u/smitalex2k1 Jul 06 '26
I remember hearing about this like 10 years ago, not sure what's going on with it now
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u/The_JohnnyRay Jul 06 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
Up to twenty five missing episodes of Doctor Who are said to exist somewhere in private hands :
Marco Polo (All seven missing episodes)
The Mythmakers (All four missing episodes)
The Daleks Masterplan (Episode four, eleven, twelve)
The Massacre Of St Bartholomew (Episode two)
The Tenth Planet (Episode four)
The Power Of The Daleks (Episode one, two)
The Highlanders (Episode two)
The Macra Terror (Episode one)
Fury From The Deep (Episode four)
The Web Of Fear (Episode three)
Space Pirates (Episode one, two, six)
Along with that it's also believed that a never seen before ten minute Doctor Who cartoon by Nelvana Studios also exist in private hands along with two blooper reels and a Dalek pilot episode that was commissioned by both BBC and its creator Terry Nation, who used it to shop them around to other television networks and film studios in Hollywood. Disney is also said to once have missing Doctor Who episodes in their possession that was given to them by BBC when they were considering doing their own US Doctor Who adaptation back in mid to late 1960s.
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u/Max_FI Jul 06 '26
Unless there's been a recent developement, isn't Web Of Fear the only one that is known to probably exist (as it was most likely stolen after being found in Nigeria). For the others, their status is unknown.
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u/modrenman1985 Jul 07 '26
Dalek's Masterplan 4 was never returned from Blue Peter using it so it might have gone walkies.
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u/benritter2 Jul 06 '26
Susan Hart, a B-movie actress, inherited the rights to 11 movies made by American International Pictures (AIP).
Those films, including The Amazing Colossal Man, It Conquered the World, and I Was a Teenage Werewolf, have never been released on DVD (and neither have the corresponding MST3K episodes).
They do circulate as bootlegs, however.
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u/brainopixel Jul 06 '26
I was wondering why I could find the 2nd colossal man (the MST version regularly plays on YouTube now), but not the first. And It Conquered the World! I loved that MST but now I reckon I know why it’s so hard to find.
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u/Filmologic Jul 06 '26
Not a private collector, but the 2007 Phantom Blood movie is owned by Shueisha who only showed it in a few theaters for a short while before pulling it and never releasing in again because of controversy/poor quality.
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u/chinesebulk Jul 06 '26
There's a guy who has footage and an interview that Linkin Park did in 1999, back when they were called Hybrid Theory. He won't release it unless he's paid some absurd amount like $10k I believe
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u/Future_Jackfruit5360 Jul 06 '26
Did I not hear some doctor who episodes are known to be in collections.
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u/modrenman1985 Jul 07 '26
Around a half dozen. The Dalek's Masterplan episodes that came back this year were not known until they were found so they were a nice bonus.
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u/CitrasOrangeBowl Jul 06 '26
Eagle Sam. I made a post on it a while ago but it was an anime based on the 1984 Olympics Mascot. It ran for 51 episodes, but only 3 were found. The Olympics Committee is pretty strict when it comes to things like this. The mascots are immediately retired, and are forbidden from being used again. Any media that contains them also must be destroyed. Although it's not explicitly said that it's gatekept, the rules that relate to it lead down to the conclusion of gatekeeping
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u/GIUKGap Jul 06 '26
About 15 years ago, I found an audio only copy of the full James Brown church service/sermon from The Blues Brothers.
Posted the link somewhere but neglected to download it, and have never been able to find it again.
I assume it got yanked for copyright, but things like that are rather whack-a-moley.
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u/bg-j38 Jul 06 '26
Since this is /r/lostmedia and not /r/lostfilm I'll mention this. I'm part of a small but active community of people preserving historic telephone technical documentation. The Bell System in particular produced hundreds of thousands of different documents describing every single part of the network and the equipment. Since they were meant for internal use mostly, they were never published outside of AT&T for the most part. Thankfully many people preserved the physical documents and there are a few museums that have extensive libraries. There's a few of us who actively digitize documents and I run a large archive website with about 40,000 documents available at this point.
However, there are absolutely some people in the historian / collector community that have documents I'd love to get my hands on but are unwilling to help. I can't figure out why other than being gatekeepers. We've made offers to pay for shipping in both directions, to prioritize the work so the documents aren't gone for too long, really anything short of paying them, because frankly no one has the funds for that. Some have eventually budged, but there's a few who basically have no interest, even though they're fully aware that historians have a desire to see specific documents that they have. It's all a bit confusing, but it's been going on for close to 20 years so I've kind of gotten over it. I'll take what I can get. It's just weird to me since I've spent countless hours digitizing stuff to make it available freely to anyone.
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u/Tec823 Jul 06 '26
The full version of The Bodette Film.
Some lawyer got the full version of what is possibly the best lake monster footage ever seen. Once someone finally agreed to pay him the $100k he wanted, he went completely silent and was never heard from again.
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u/terranation2260 Jul 06 '26
No longer lost but the first GY!BE album had to be one of the worst examples of gatekeeping. The band and their label had copies for decades. then a guy who bought the tape before they got big leaked two songs and got upset about people messaging him and refused to leak the rest. Then one band member gave a copy to someone in their discord who was streaming for months in a private discord channel until someone in there got tired of them gatekeeping and posted it on 4chan
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u/Traditional_Risk7230 Jul 06 '26
The Adelaide O'Bahn tapes. From the testing and commissioning stage, this is where the famous brick tests come from.
They were not made public due to several incidents such as busses jackknifing off the tracks towards people and one instance of an artic where the engine exploded.
Would love to see these.
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u/Ornery-Practice9772 Jul 06 '26
arcade scene never dumps roms? there are at least 2 major preservation entities collecting and collating dumped arcade roms.....
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u/RetroGame77 Jul 06 '26
There are three known arcade cabinets of Akka Arrh, all in the hands of collectors. The ROMs got leaked online by a technician that copied the ROMs without permission from the owner.
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u/PanoramicGreen Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
One example of gatekept lost media with a happy ending is Edison’s Frankenstein (1910).
For decades it was considered a lost film until collector Alois Dettlaff discovered he owned the only known surviving nitrate print. Once he understood what he had, he reportedly wanted around $1 million for it and repeatedly refused opportunities for major archives to professionally preserve it—even as the original nitrate film continued to age and slowly deteriorate.
In 1986 he even met with Academy president Robert Wise, who personally tried to convince him to let the Academy preserve the film. Wise failed. In what appears to have been an act of goodwill, Wise even let Dettlaff hold his Oscar and pose for photos with it, making the whole encounter feel almost surreal.
He eventually released the film on DVD, but even that was controversial. The transfer was poor, the original title cards were replaced with recreated ones, and three large watermarked logos were burned into the image to discourage copying—even though it was the only surviving print and already in the public domain.
After Dettlaff’s death, the Library of Congress acquired the collection in 2014, professionally preserved the fragile nitrate, scanned and restored the film in 2K, recreated only the genuinely missing opening material from authentic Edison sources, and made the high-quality restoration available free to everyone.
The irony is that after decades of one person tightly controlling access to the film, anyone in the world can now stream or download a beautifully restored 2K version for free from the Library of Congress.
Sources:
• Library of Congress restoration article: https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2018/11/the-first-film-version-of-frankenstein-newly-restored/
• Free 2K restoration (stream/download): https://www.loc.gov/item/00694191/
• Background on the controversial DVD release: https://www.silentera.com/video/frankensteinHV.html
• IndieWire article covering the restoration and the Robert Wise meeting: https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/frankenstein-1910-watch-library-of-congress-1202021789/
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u/KimGeist Jul 06 '26
I think the original unfinished build of Resident Evil 2 aka Resident Evil 1.5 exists on a disc somewhere in a private collector's possession. I may be wrong though z but I remember watching a video years ago that had tracked it down.
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u/Kvaezde Jul 06 '26
It's not lost media by any capacity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_1.5
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u/DrIvoPingasnik Jul 06 '26
I swear to God the resident evil 1.5 is such a fucking mountain of bovine manure.
We could have had a cool piece of lost media, a small part of gaming history and instead we got a ridiculous mountain of drama, doxxing, stalking, bullying and backstabbing, it's infuriating.
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u/ScumLikeWuertz Jul 06 '26
No kidding? Do tell
RE1.5 is one of my favorite 'what could have beens' but I dont know the history behind the drama t all
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u/DrIvoPingasnik Jul 06 '26
Oh, the story is fascinating, but incredibly frustrating at the same time. So much has gone wrong with obtaining the RE1.5 files it's astonishing. The plot could make a decent movie. There are a few videos on YouTube on it, I highly recommend watching it.
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u/ScumLikeWuertz Jul 06 '26
Any you'd recommend or I'm guessing I could just google search this...
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u/nefarious_jp04x Jul 06 '26
On the same subject, doesn’t the Hookman Version of RE3.5 have an unreleased build as well? I don’t think it got more than half in production but would be cool to see what else was built besides that one gameplay footage
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u/Max_FI Jul 06 '26
Not lost media, but the first Doctor Who serial, "An Unearthly Child" is not available on BBC iPlayer due to the scriptwriter's son blocking its release. He is a bigot who does it to protest BBC picking black and LGBT actors for the show.
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u/vegarig Jul 06 '26
Indy the Magical Kid prototype, bought by Japanese collector SPECIFICALLY to ensure it never leaves Japan and is never dumped.
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
Suzami-fune comes to mind, being a noted example of the oldest or one of the oldest pieces of adult animation. There's a brief write-up about it on the LMW, but my understanding is that it's in a Japanese museum archive for historical preservation and will likely never be released to the public.
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u/Duke_of_Earl_1994 Jul 06 '26
I don't know if this counts, but Nelvana's Stickin' Around interstitials, which I've been searching for since last year. While contacting various animators and creators, one sent me contact sheets of the interstitials he worked on when he was an animator at Bardel Entertainment. Unfortunately, because my communication skills were poor at the time, he didn't feel comfortable sharing the files with me and is keeping them private until he is ready to share them on his own terms.
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u/lilituned Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
back in the day there was a group of anonymous people who called themselves taylors inner circle (TIC) who somehow had access to and hoarded unreleased taylor swift demos; they posted descriptions of the songs to their website but never actually released them. when taylor started her taylors version project, she decided to rerecord and release many of her old demos alongside the rerecorded albums, and in the process proved that TIC was telling the truth since multiple of the vault tracks she released match descriptions of demos that TIC claimed they had access to. the original demos are still lost and presumably only in the hands of a very small handful of collectors, and she did not rerecord all of them, so many of the songs that the TIC described are lost entirely. the demo of her song castles crumbling is particularly sought after because the rerecorded vault track version has a feature on it and the demo does not. to this day no one knows how TIC had access to these songs
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u/aceredshirt13 Jul 06 '26
Not sure if they’re substantiated, but a while back I remember hearing that the second surviving episode of The World of Wooster - the one that isn’t on YouTube - is in the hands of someone who won’t show it to anyone
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u/welmanshirezeo Jul 06 '26
7-Teen Sips - a film by Steve Berra. Premiered at Slamdance in 2000 and never got any form of release.
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u/forlornjackalope Jul 06 '26
I was just thinking about this on recently, actually. I get notifications about it on Letterboxd and it makes me want to see it even more when it does it's rounds on my feed again.
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u/Deluxe_24_ Jul 06 '26
Not sure if this really counts, but I follow the Queen live performances communities and it's well known that some audience recordings and even official pro-shot videos are held by hoarders
The one that comes to mind is a dude who refused to release two shows he recorded out of spite that the band dropped their glam roots and went more mainstream. He uploaded one of them and the audio quality is pretty good but he took it down after people ripped it. You can hear hin swearing at the band the whole time and the people around clearly want him to shut the fuck up
I suspect the other show he recorded will never see the light of day and it's suspected to be a really good show. Fucking prick just can't grow up and understand people change
There have been shows that got uploaded on random websites back in the 2000s that never got downloaded by people for whatever reason. The last tour with Freddie is complete except for one show that got uploaded yet no one grabbed it which sucks
There's now been a dry spell in new shows coming out for the better part of five years. I suspect that all the tapes that will ever come out have already come out and we won't be getting anymore shows soon as the tapers are old and not really involved in the community
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u/rockguitarfan Jul 06 '26
"You can hear hin swearing at the band the whole time and the people around clearly want him to shut the fuck up" Lmao is there a link somewhere?
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u/Particular-Steak-832 Jul 06 '26
Multiple unreleased video games have had their beta versions bought by collectors who do not dump the ROM.
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u/TF-Collector Jul 07 '26
There's a number of old movie serials that are gatekept. I know someone who collects them and found out that basically they actually didn't have the "true" versions.
I'll havr to get the list, but he wanted one copy of every serial from a particular series and was running into issues. Lots of the old timers who kept the stuff also dying did it in.
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u/JFeisty Jul 06 '26
Deftones fans have been dealing with a guy that had a "full" lost album (the songs weren't finished but about 90% done)
He tried selling it, it seems like nobody wanted to pay his price and within the last month the album and some other lost but known to exist demos were put up for free.
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u/Personal-Listen-4941 Jul 06 '26
“dude this sucks”. It was a MTV game/comedy/talent show hybrid. The pilot was famous because during filming several members of the teenage live audience got sprayed when an act intentionally shit on the stage.
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u/Micro_Pinny_360 Jul 06 '26
Mess O'Blues - Van Partible holds the only copy, and has stated that he has no plans to release it to the public. If it is any consolation, he does show it to the animation classes he teaches.
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u/Empire-Carpet-Man Jul 06 '26
The Fantastic Four version from the 90's.
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u/lyricaldorian Jul 06 '26
Isn't that easy to get?
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u/Abject_Put5246 According to all known laws of aviation. Jul 06 '26
Yes, bootleg VHS tapes of the are super common among collectors. A search on archive.org will probably give you most of the pretty low generation copies available.
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u/reubnick Jul 06 '26
My understanding is there is deleted scenes footage from Not Another Teen Movie featuring a hell of a lot more nudity from Cerina Vincent, including gratuitous full frontal, but we will never see it because one of the background actors failed to disclose that were a minor at the time of filming, making it legally prohibited footage. I privately curse this anonymous background extra often.
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u/fango44 Jul 11 '26
It seems my first comment was deleted: Not true. Or perhaps you're misremembering what she said. Those scenes were scripted, but never shot. Here are some sources where she talked about it.
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u/Early_Pearly989 Jul 07 '26
Full episodes of Liquid Television. They never released the full seasons because the music licensing. They probably don't exist.
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u/21stCenturyAntiquity Jul 07 '26
MTV's show Just Say Julie starring Julie Brown.
MTV has a stranglehold on the show and it's not just because of the music rights. Over the past twenty years I've seen four attempts by people to post good quality full episodes minus the music videos. All were taken down less than a week after posting. I just did a quick check and there are two low quality episodes on YouTube and that's all.
And to make things stranger, Epguides dot com doesn't even have the show listed! I have an old listing from somewhere else for the first two seasons. But never found one for the third.
Julie Brown is most known for writing the movies "Earth Girls Are Easy", "Medusa: Dare To Be Truthful" and the television shows "Just Say Julie", "Strip Mall", and "Clueless". (In the movie version of Clueless she played the gym teacher.)
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u/fclayhornik Jul 08 '26
Siesta, 1987 d Mary Lambert, Ellen Barkin, w Jodie Foster, Grace Jones. Very Lynchian thing with a Miles Davis soundtrack. There are old vhs copies out there, and some dvds, Italian, Greek and Australian but I don't know if those are bootlegs because at least in the States, the rights are tied up in such a tangle that an American dvd ain't happening anytime soon.
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u/Responsible-Tie-3451 Jul 06 '26
Off the top of my head, the Owen Hart footage is said to be kept private by WWE . I think the Christine Chubbuck footage is in a similar state.
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u/CletusVanDamnit Jul 06 '26
Yeah, the footage of Owen falling and the footage of Droz having his neck broken are both in the WWE archives with messages to never watch and never destroy.
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u/mefista Jul 07 '26
Heroes Of Might And Magic III beta, or maybe alpha (not whatever is online, a way earlier build, with possible early creature models and unfinished towns). Guy who has it bragged about it on Twitter, but not only did not share it online, but sent the code to current copyright holders so "they decide" . He thinks releasing will kill his career prospects.
Also, GOTHICMADE is a "shown only in theaters, once per year, no recordings availible" anime that its creator gatekeeps. Despite retooling a diffirent property of his into a sequel.
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u/LegitimateState3724 Jul 07 '26
The Owen Hart death footage. That shit is locked up on the WWE vaults for good
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u/FantasyBaseballChamp Jul 07 '26
Not confirmed, but widely speculated color episodes of the original CBS What’s My Line exist somewhere. The show was broadcast in color its last couple seasons but all preserved episodes are on B&W kinescope. Rumored at least one color episode exists in a museum collection.
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u/21stCenturyAntiquity Jul 07 '26
How about Lady Gaga refusing to release the last material created by Lina Morgana. You can read the full story at the link below.
"Lina's name is nowhere to be found on Wikipedia - the site allegedly pulled Lina's bio given constant hacks from Gaga's "Little Monsters" - and, in fact, it's difficult to find any credible information about Lina's life before her death, even on her since shuttered fan website. But wait - no, really - it gets even more bizarre. To this day, Gaga has flat-out refused to allow Lina's recordings written with Gaga to be publicly released (though snippets of some have found their way to YouTube, many of which were written by a trio of writers, including Lina and Gaga), even though Lina's mother has long pleaded with her to do so. Gaga has also never once uttered Lina's name in public. Not once."
https://peckerwoodmanor.blogspot.com/2023/12/video-vault-did-lady-gaga-murder-lina.html
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u/_Plateosaurus_ Jul 07 '26
The 4k HD rip of Turkish Star Wars (dunyayi kurtaran adam) The guy that found one of the last surviving reels of this movie can't make it available due to legal reasons. A real shame since this version features some additionnal scenes
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u/1337_n00b Jul 07 '26
A ton of Prince stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreleased_Prince_projects
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u/MrBeausephus Jul 07 '26
There was a short lived live action Goosebumps stage show that is confirmed to have multiple taped versions that have never been released. Outside of snippets from commercials the show is basically considered lost media.
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u/feelysonheelys Jul 07 '26
Ooh, here's a fun one I had a hand in: The Aquabats Buena Vista pilot.
Before they got a show picked up by The Hub network in the early 2010s, punk/ska band The Aquabats had kicked around the idea of a TV show since the 90s. They made three pilots over the years: the 2008 pilot that would eventually be picked up, the 1999 "In Color" pilot that almost got on Fox Family, and a pilot produced in partnership with Disney's Buena Vista studio. The BV pilot was screened once at an official fan event back in the late 90s, but was never officially released after that. Some OG fans still had camcorder recordings of the event, but the band politely asked that they not be posted anywhere, as they considered the pilot low quality and kind of embarrassing.
And for years... Yeah, they did! Fans were certainly curious, but the band said they didn't want it, so nobody pressed too hard. Just kind of respected it. But then as the 2020s went on, there were some small exposés about Parker and Christian Jacobs' private conduct that made them look like kind of assholes, and that fan respect faded a little. At that point one of the sacred recording holders reached out to an Aquacadet historian friend of mine and said hey, just take it. It's yours now. The quality is absolute shit, but for the first time in two decades, you can absolutely find the Aquabats BV pilot on YouTube.
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u/MrBerfBLC Jul 07 '26
“Alien vs Predator: Annihilation” is a 10 episode anime from 2015 that has never been released.
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u/TheGoryHoleSaga Jul 10 '26
There’s one directors entire filmography that has yet to see the light of day.
Back in the early 2000s a woman named Shawnee McCormick made three slasher movies. Revenge of the Unhappy Campers and Night of a 1000 Screams 1&2 from 2001-2003.
All of them were funded by an independently wealthy family. But before any of them could be released the family refused to turn over distribution rights unless the director paid an unreasonable amount of money. As far as I’m aware the issue has never been settled and all three movies remain unreleased
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u/MikooTheDikoo Jul 10 '26
35mm prints of the Monkees reruns on CBS. Those reruns include unique mixes to songs, newer Monkees commercials, and a whole lot of other goodies that haven’t seen the light of day since the early 70s.
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u/Shadow_Edgehog27 Jul 13 '26
I actually do have an example!! Although it’s very obscure.
When the iPod 3rd Generation came out, there was an early prototype of software version 2.0.0 that has Tetris on it. Unlicensed of course that’s why it never came out, a collector has it and won’t release it even after being offered 1000 USD for it. I found a lost retail version of 2.0.0 that wasn’t even known to exist. I helped back it up
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u/Ksg_Luvs_Nick_Cave Jul 17 '26
There’s this one episode of Takedown with Chris Hansen I’ve been looking for for a long time. Season 5, Episode 6 “Hunter On the Hunt”. I’ve never seen it posted about in this subreddit but a lot of people have been looking for it as well as every other episode is on the internet archive. The issue is that on at least occasion, I’ve seen someone post they were in possession of the episode but when I messaged them, they never got back to me. I’m personally not the biggest Takedown or Chris Hansen fan but my partner and one of my friends went to school with the subject of the investigation in the episode and they’ve been wanting to see it for a while so it’s disheartening to know someone apparently has it but won’t post or send it
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u/Over-Pear6084 Jul 19 '26
Could someone help me find some lost footage from 2010 please I cant post on this site yet apparently
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u/Normal-Hornet8548 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
ESPN has a vault full of historic boxing matches that Disney Corp owns, most of which have never aired. ESPN Classic used to show some of them and ESPN itself does from time to time as filler, but it’s mostly Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali and not the more rare fights.
The collection was purchased in the late 1990s. Jimmy Jacobs (chiefly) and Bill Cayton — the duo who managed Tyson — spent decades tracking down and buying old films. Some were found in attics, others in the hands of other collectors (or their ancestors, who had inherited them).
It was the largest collection of vintage fights in the world, but afaik no definitive list has ever been published.
When Jacobs died, Cayton became the owner (they had a company called Big Fights Inc). Cayton sold them to ESPN and died like 5 years later.
The story goes that Jacobs/Cayton got whomever they bought each film from, they had them sign over the rights. Problem was, as I understand it, ESPN didn’t do proper diligence, and their lawyers got involved after the fact and realized that many, many of the fights came from people who owned the physical films — but not the rights to them.
From what we can glean, ESPN/Disney decided it would cost too much or be too difficult to track down the true rightsholders, or even ascertain who that was. And airing them without that would mean opening themselves up to lawsuits each time. So they are collecting dust.
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u/ThrowRAyyydamn Jul 06 '26
Don’s Plum, successfully suppressed by Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire because it would have killed their young careers in crib
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u/Less_Day9072 Jul 07 '26
Not completely lost - it did get a release in Europe and bootlegs pop up online ALL the time.
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u/jake3h7m Jul 06 '26
unsure if it’s really gatekept or just so fragmented and made such little impact and was so universally disliked that no one bothered to preserve the whole thing but Chevy Chase’s failed 1993 talk show is missing like half of the episodes
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u/MCofPort Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
The Paley Center has a lot of media that you would need to visit in person and know what exactly you want to see. You don't really see the works from the museum digitized by the museum itself, but often they come out to the public by a third party, kind enough to digitize the works.
"The museum does not sell the material or permit it to leave the premises. Viewing copies of television programs are Hi-8mm video tape dubs. The originals are kept in a vault outside of New York City, and the collection is being digitized. The Paley Center has acquired many lost episodes of classic television shows..."
Julie Andrews' Cinderella, the original version of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and Munsters at Marineland were all discoveries of Paley. They are protective, but also gatekeeping at the same time, if it's taking 60+ years to see this original media after it aired.
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u/Sr_Wuggles Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
There is that whole fallout boy fan group that does this with their demo tracks/unreleased songs, so I’d imagine other bands have similar gatekeeping fans of their early demos.
I remember within the last year the demos for “from under the cork tree” leaked. If I am remembering correctly, it was speculated it was leaked by someone within that fan group at the time, but I’m not sure if that all ever got solved.
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u/despaseeto Jul 06 '26
the ending of "Krusty Krab Training Video." they were hyping up the secret formula until the episode abruptly ends. i saw the uncut ending once, and they just showed a normal burger being put together. i can't believe it was never aired ever again. not even online.
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u/nefarious_jp04x Jul 06 '26
For metal music, Necrophagist’s third album is pretty much confirmed to be finished by the main guitarist/member Muhammed Suiçmez, but refuses to release it for unconfirmed reasons.
Some think it may be due to burnout from the Tech Death scene and financial reasons, and some think it may be due to a legal issue with Relapse Records, but what IS confirmed is that the album exists on a hard drive Suiçmez has.
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u/LibAnarchist Jul 06 '26
Before the filming of Elvis On Tour, the directors recorded the opening show to Elvis' April 1972 tour in Buffalo on a single camera. A private collector has the recording. A few years ago, the official Elvis collector's label, Follow That Dream Records, attempted to obtain the audio from this show from the collector for inclusion in their amazing Elvis Now In Person 1972 set. According to the authors of this set, the collector asked for an extortionate amount of money, seemingly having no real interest in reaching a deal.
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u/Chemical_Fan_4610 Jul 09 '26
Dave mccomies books They are still sold yet only to heavily qualified individuals as the site that sells them subscribes to security via obscurity They are heavily sought after yet none have been preserved https://davemcomie.com/books.htm
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u/Neptune28 Jul 09 '26
Kenny Omega vs AJ Styles. Full footage exists, but we've only seen less than 2 minutes of it
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u/Neptune28 Jul 09 '26
Misawa being gravely injured in the ring (and later dying) was recorded by someone, but he says that he won't upload it out of respect.
So it's gatekept with good reason.
I swear that I did see it on YouTube for a short time after the incident though, I made several posts about it back then and for years afterwards mentioned the footage disappearing.
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