Ramones documentary gets a 4K restoration and a digital release

A 4K restoration of End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones will reach cinemas later this year through Magnolia Pictures, and the film will be available to rent and own digitally for the first time. Specific theatrical and digital dates have not been set.

Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields directed the documentary, and Magnolia says the restoration was made from original materials. The film traces the band from their beginnings in mid-70s Queens through to the deaths of Joey and Dee Dee Ramone, taking in the relentless touring schedule that kept the group on the road for more than two decades and the acrimonious split that ended it.

The timing is deliberate. The restoration lands on the 50th anniversary of the Ramones' self-titled debut, the album that gave rock most of the vocabulary punk has been using since.

A one-off tribute is set for 30 August at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, where Rancid's Tim Armstrong, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Travis Barker of blink-182 and CJ Ramone, who replaced Dee Dee on bass, will play Ramones material together. They are billing themselves Cretin Family, after a track from the band's fourteenth and final studio album.

Music documentaries have been arriving in volume this year, from a Neil Peart film honouring the late Rush drummer to Travis Barker's own Louder Than Fear, which puts Barker in two of them within a fortnight. What separates End of the Century is that it was shot while three of the four original Ramones were still alive to argue about what happened.

Magnolia has not said which cities get theatrical bookings, and the digital date is still open.