A couple of weeks ago we passed along some industry rumors about
The Archie Show coming to retail on DVD later this year. At the time we were told it was Classic Media that had obtained the rights, which naturally meant that Genius Products would distribute it to retail since those companies are working together now. Well, it seems that our source was close to the mark, but apparently missed it by just a wee little bit: we are now hearing that it's actually Genius Products directly putting
The Archie Show out themselves, rather than a situation where they would be distributing it for Classic Media. None of that's confirmed from the studio yet, though.
Still, it's interesting to note that we were able to find
an Amazon.com listing for The Archie Show - The Complete Series with a
July 31st release date! There's no other information there yet (not even the studio name), and they're not actually taking pre-orders at this time, either. But it makes sense that this would be targeted for release around the end of July. As you know, many animated (and related) DVD releases get scheduled for around that time period so that they can tie in with the annual San Diego Comic Con International, which this year runs July 26th-29th. We're already expecting
The Secret of Isis, Underdog - Ultimate Volumes and
The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog among the DVD titles we'll around that time period, so Genius releasing
The Archie Show at that time makes sense.
Note that
The Archie Show is a Filmation production, but wasn't part of the original deal between Entertainment Rights and BCI. This property was originally made under license from Archie Comics, of course (the same folks who own
Josie and the Pussycats, if you're wondering where else we mentioned them recently). So this Filmation animation, like other licensed properties Filmation produced such as
Star Trek: The Animated Series,
Shazam and
Fat Albert, did not automatically go to BCI when other programs like
He-Man and
Isis did. That's why Entertainment Rights was able to shop
Archie around, and so the DVDs apparently have ended up at Genius. That makes quite a bit of sense since Entertainment Rights already had a separate agreement with Genius. The confusion mentioned above regarding whether Genius or Classic Media would be putting
The Archie Show out might stem from the fact that in January the folks at Entertainment Rights completed their outright aquisition of Classic Media. Yes, we know all of this is confusing, but we hope this clears up some of it. Stay tuned for further developments, okay?
Update:
CDUniverse has listed the set for July 31 as well, and provided more information (Genius Products as the distributor, a $26.98 list price). Thanks to TJ for sending us the link.
