Two days after the Universal Studios fire, there are a lot of rumors going around as to the extent of the damage. A FishbowlLA tipster from a revival house in Alabama fed the blog an email that they say came directly from Universal, warning that “nearly 100% of the archive prints kept” on the lot went up in flames, and as a result, the studio “will be unable to honor any film bookings of prints that were set to ship from here.” The tragic details after the jump.

Basically, any theater scheduled to rent an archive print directly from Universal is now advised to consider their reservation “canceled,” although “If the shipping instructions say ship from Deluxe then those dates are still good.” Any while the studio’s vault of masters was apparently unharmed, it’s apparently only going to be practical for them to reprint a fraction of the lost titles. The email goes on: “The bad news is that most likely, only the ‘big’ titles will ever be reprinted in 35mm. Many Universal titles will never be seen in 35mm publicly again.”

What’s going to qualify as “big”? Is something like the original The Killers “big,” or is that a distinction that’s going to be reserved for “classics” with more contemporary value, like Jaws? I get a pit in my stomach just imaging all of my beloved B-level Universal horror films that’ll never be projected again.