A David Bowie performance hidden in film cans is finally becoming an arena event
Brett Morgen’s new Bowie concert film draws on 1978 Earls Court footage and will premiere in February before an arena tour in 2027.
Nearly five decades after it was filmed, a long-unfinished David Bowie concert project is finally headed for the public. Director Brett Morgen says the newly assembled film captures Bowie in a way audiences have not seen before, and it will debut as an arena presentation rather than a standard theatrical release.
The change is straightforward for Bowie fans. Footage from two 1978 shows at London’s Earls Court has been turned into a new concert film by Brett Morgen, the director of the 2022 documentary Moonage Daydream. The project will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, then be taken on the road in arenas in 2027.
Morgen said he came across the material after gaining access to Bowie’s personal archive in 2017, where he found several cans labeled “Stage.” He spent nine years assembling his own version of the concert film from what was in those cans.
A teaser for the project appears below.
Morgen said that after reviewing Bowie’s filmed performances, this one stood out to him above the rest. He also said the film shows Bowie performing without an alter ego for the first time, describing him as open, engaged and visibly enjoying himself onstage and off to the side.
The film uses songs from both Earls Court nights, with live audio recorded by Tony Visconti. Morgen said Bowie approached the performances with enough spontaneity that the arrangements could change from one night to the next, giving the material an unstable, exciting edge. He highlighted “Sound and Vision” in particular, saying the performance includes a moment where Bowie appears close to laughing.
Why it took so long and what audiences will actually get
Morgen suggested the original film may have been left unfinished because Bowie was already focused on what came next and had little appetite for revisiting recent work. He said Bowie did begin thinking about releasing the footage near the end of his life, and that the job of completing it eventually passed to him.
The restoration was extensive. Morgen said more than 1,000 hours went into color grading because the goal was to make the film feel immediate to a modern audience. He also said one element from the raw footage was left out: material featuring a young boy playing David.
What premieres in 2027 is not being pitched as a normal movie screening. Morgen described an arena setup with multiple screens, an integrated lighting package and a 7.1 sound mix. His idea, he said, is to present a 1978 performance through a 2027 lens, letting the audience decide where to focus its attention.
