Sources: Wikidata · OpenAlex · Library of Congress. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
FILM NOTES
Released in 2004 through Lionsgate, The Punisher brought Marvel's grim vigilante to the screen in an era before the character found his sharper footing on television. Thomas Jane starred as Frank Castle, a man remade by loss into an instrument of retribution. The film sits in that transitional stretch of comic book cinema, made with modest resources and a hard R sensibility, before the genre tilted toward spectacle. For collectors of Marvel adaptations, it holds a place as an early, unpolished attempt at bringing punishing consequence and personal grief to a mainstream action picture.
This cell preserves Frank and Maria Castle together, the domestic center of the story before Frank's transformation. Maria's presence here marks the life that gives Frank's later mission its weight, the marriage and family that anchor him before everything is taken away. For collectors, a frame holding husband and wife side by side represents the film's emotional foundation, the ordinary happiness the Punisher's entire arc is built to avenge.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of The Punisher (2004).
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges; spacing appears even and the punched edges appear clean throughout the strip.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along one edge beside the picture area, with what appears to be a Dolby Digital data-block strip in the inter-perforation gaps on the same edge; a DTS timecode line also appears present as a thin line adjacent to the optical track.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read manufacturer text or key numbers.
Base & colour
The base shows a cyan-tinted clear stock consistent with modern safety film; the dye image reads with a cool blue-purple cast, appearing fully saturated without obvious fading.
Projection history
Light vertical scratching is visible across the frame area, consistent with a print that has passed through a projector gate.
Picture
Positive colour image; the three frames run consecutively as a single continuous shot and the colour palette and production design are consistent with a 2004 theatrical release print.
Era check
The combination of Dolby Digital data blocks, DTS timecode, variable-area optical track, and cyan-base polyester stock is consistent with a mid-2000s theatrical release print, matching the 2004 release date of the film on record.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000064395
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
