Rounders Rerelease?
I hate to spread a rumor, but hey, it beats blogging about the $20 drubbing I took last night trying to clear my PokerStars bonus.

I was surfing around today and discovered the Unofficial World Poker Tour Fan Site. I think I've run across this before but with so many poker sites out there I hadn't delved too deeply. Anyway, in a discussion thread about Teddy KGB's tell in Rounders, a user by the name of cottes remarked today that "Speaking of Rounders; Both Chris Moneymaker and 'The Fossilman' are out in L.A. filming a bit that is going to be added to a new release of a Rounders DVD."

I had read rumors of a Rounders rerelease before on RGP, but it seemed mostly wishful thinking along the lines of "How cool would it be to have commentary trqacks by not just the actors and director, but also by poker pros?" This new bit of info from cottes intrigued me.

I clicked over to IMDB and found this post, also dated June 9: "Brian Koppelman, one of the screenwriters, posted on the rec.gambling.poker group that Miramax is releasing a commentary-heavy DVD at the end of the summer or in fall."

I hopped over to RGP to confirm. Sure enough, there's a post from Koppelman, but dated May 23: "As far as doing a commentary: Miramax is issuing a collector's edition dvd with plenty of commentary tracks." So I guess I just missed that bit of news.

Checked Amazon.com: Nothing but the regular version on sale there.

Well, that's the extent of the sleuthing I'm going to do on this for now. Needless to say I think it'd be cool if the Moneymaker/Raymer thing is true. The WPT and online poker are obviously main major factors, but I think Rounders's role in the current poker craze is sometimes overlooked. I know I'd pay for a new DVD edition that has a commentary track (or more likely, a "featurette") featuring a WSOP champion (Moneymaker) talking about the movie that inspired him to get into poker in the first place.
posted by James at 3:42 PM