All this talk makes me wonder why J.J. funded a remastering of PHANTASM but not STAR WARS '77. Then again, I suppose they were already in the process of the 4k scans by the time he was in talks to direct TFA.
Phantasm isn’t owned by a huge company though.
It was a personal project- much like Moroder’s Metropolis 30+ years ago. Star Wars is a huge seller- it shouldn’t need to be a personal project.
And both of those have shiny Blu Ray editions. Personal project or no, J.J. wasn’t dealing with a film that might be caught between two powerful entities, Fox and Disney.