This past Friday, we
reported on a release date of
February 19th for
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe - Volume 1 for the 2002 version of the series. In the story, we quoted
an article in Home Media Magazine - a leading industry trade journal - which in turn quoted Navarre's CEO, Cary Deacon, as saying that Navarre would "
continue to focus efforts to reposition BCI into the Latino and budget categories".
That quote came directly from
Navarre's press release with their Fiscal 2008 2nd Quarter financial results. In our story last week, we presented our analysis, saying that the obvious interpretation of Deacon's comment, by us *AND* by many worried fans, was that this could mean that the
He-Man releases "
may be the last of their kind put out by BCI" (quoting myself there).
BCI very quickly expressed disappointment with that story, and pointed out that the intent is to continue the same TV-on-DVD releases, and other kinds of releases, in addition to beefing up their presence in the Latino and budget categories. To clear it all up, this morning a BCI spokesperson issued the following statement:
BCI will continue to focus on the genres and product that we have for the last three years. We have the Ink and Paint brand which will have releases in 2008 in addition to HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. HE-MAN will be released in three volumes – the first on February 19th, 2008. Volume Two will be released in April and the third volume will release in the summer. These three sets will have an amazing amount of bonus content eclipsing the original HE-MAN sets. The sets are being produced in association with Mattel and the team that launched the 2002 series. Our Deimos brand will have some much sought-after cult films in the New Year which will be announced very soon. Ronin Entertainment will have two new release in the classic Japanese television genre with SUPER ROBOT RED BARON coming in February and SILVER KAMEN in the spring and new and classic films from the Shochiku film library. We will continue to be a dominant leader in the mixed martial arts category with releases from KING OF THE CAGE and PRIDE and in the martial arts genre with 35 classic films from major libraries in 2008 and 2009, some in High Definition. We will continue to focus on Latin product with telenovelas, new and classic feature films and stand-up comedy. THE BEST OF PRICE IS RIGHT will be released in March and we have more games show releases throughout 2008 as well as VH1's five part series GAME SHOW MOMENTS GONE BANANAS. We will also look to grow our budget business over the course of 2008 with licensed content as well as public domain films. We plan to announce a big 2006 television series in the coming weeks. We have more announcements coming soon. BCI looks to have a great year in 2008 and I think our customers can look forward to the same quality releases that they have come to expect over the last few years.
That's great to know, and a relief to Gord and I here. We admire the growth and expansion that BCI has accomplished over the last few years, and wish them continued success.
Toward that end, we'll also mention that BCI also has coming up the release of Filmation's
Lone Ranger/Zorro: Volume 1, a second volume of
BraveStarr to follow up on
their recent first release, an awesome-looking package in January of
All-Star Family Feud Starring Richard Dawson, a compilation of
Happy Tree Friends - Season 1 into a single box, a probable Blu-ray Disc release of the 2002
He-Man (although it would release later on the schedule than the DVD version, to accomodate some additional potential supplements), and the delayed release of the U.K. version of
The IT Crowd - Version 1.0: The Complete 1st Season.
Sounds like they're pretty busy over there, after all. Well, they should be...they have the power!
