If you’re a fan of the Indiana Jones franchise, September is a great month.  Not only did Raiders of the Lost Ark get a special one-week IMAX release, but the entire franchise hits Blu-ray next week and the box set is loaded with incredible behind-the-scenes extras.  For a full list of what’s included, click here.  But trust me when I say, this is a set absolutely worth owning.  Click here to order Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures on Amazon.

To help promote the release, I recently got to visit LucasFilm in San Francisco and participate in a group interview with Sound Designer Ben Burtt and Visual Effects Supervisor Dennis Muren.  They talked about their thoughts on how the films hold up, the visual effects, their favorite moments, how Burtt came up with some of the signature sounds, if anything changed during the restoration process, and a lot more.  Hit the jump for what they had to say.

If you’re a film nerd, you know who Dennis Muren, Phil Tippett and John Rosengrant are.  That’s because between the three of them, they’ve worked on some of the biggest sci-fi films of the last 35 years including Star Wars, E.T., The Abyss, Robocop, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Iron Man, and Terminator 2.  So when I got to speak with the three of them to discuss their incredible work on Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, it was a bit challenging, as I could have spent all day asking them questions about dozens of films.  But I only had five minutes…

During my limited time with these masters of visual effects, we talked about what they did on Jurassic Park, the 24-month pre-production schedule, what changed along the way, and what hurdles visual effects are about to overcome.  In addition, with Tippett and Rosengrant working on The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn,  Tippett talked about working with director Bill Condon; Rosengrant talked about the Bella birth sequence and how they combined makeup effects on Kristen Stewart with CGI to make her look extra thin.  Also, they’re using a “little bit of puppets and some hybrid effects.”  Hit the jump for more.

Over the last few days I’ve posted different parts of my extended video interview with Guillermo del Toro that I recorded at the Toronto International Film Festival.  Del Toro was in Toronto to promote Julia’s Eyes – which he produced.  While he already talked about his soon to be announced DreamWorks Animation deal, TV projects, and his movie Julia’s Eyes, it’s time for the rest of the interview and it covers At the Mountains of Madness, Disney’s Haunted Mansion, and something not yet announced: he’s making video games!!  Here’s the bullet points:

• del Toro told me he has a video game deal that’s not yet announced.  He revealed it’s for 3 games to be made over 10 years with the goal of a new game every 3 years!

• Haunted Mansion: he said it will be PG-13 and it will be a “dark ride”.  Says they turned in the storyline last week to Disney along with the first few key concept drawings. Matthew Robbins is writing and he’ll start in about a month. Hopes to know if Disney will move forward on it in January. At that time he’ll figure out if he will direct it or if it will be someone else.

• At the Mountains of Madness:  del Toro gave me a scoop when he revealed Dennis Muren is designing the monsters! Muren told him “you’ve never seen monsters like this.”  If you don’t who Dennis Muren is…look over his resume and you’ll know when it’s so cool that he’s involved. He went on to say the film isn’t greenlit yet, he’ll be talking to some Lovecraft scholars to get their input on the script, hopes to make the movie without interference, explained how he got James Cameron involved, and says the film suffers from two big issues: it’s a hard core R rated movie and it’s a horror tentpole with a big budget.

So much more after the jump: