Waaaay back in December 2003 (well over a year ago), we posted
a story about
Beverly Hills, 90210 being a property whose rights were slated to transfer from one company (Lions Gate/Artisan) to another company (Paramount) during 2005. Due to that, we told you, Lions Gate had no time to release season sets of the series, and instead they settled for cashing in on a DVD of
The Pilot Episode, and leaving the season set releases to the other studio. Many fans picked up that disc to tide us over, but we're all waiting for season sets...and now it seems that Paramount may be ready to bring them on!
Yesterday's edition of
The Wall Street Journal (2/23/05, Section B) had a story by Merissa Marr and Joe Flint entitled "DVDs Are Finally Paramount." The article explains that previous management figures had a strategy of bringing titles - film and TV based - to DVD in a slow and steady fashion, and that new management in place now has a different plan of increasing the studio's revenue by way of cutting loose on the library.
Much of this has been reported already, at the time that the executives did their shuffle in recent months, and it wasn't exactly news we could use here at TVShowsOnDVD because no actual titles were brought up. But the
Wall Street Journal story is naming names!
Mentioned in the story are a number of shows that Paramount intends to release in the near future, in order to drive their profits and therefore the stock value at parent Viacom.
Beverly Hills, 90210 is mentioned as being among the titles they are planning to release, albeit later than some of the others talked aout in the story. Also mentioned was spin-off show
Melrose Place!
Nothing along the lines of a timeline was given, though, nor any other details. We're not even sure these will be box sets (but we assume so, since that's Paramount's normal release pattern). We're very happy here to know that something's in the works for this series. Like many of you, I was hopelessly addicted to the show when Fox Network aired it, and we all are waiting to catch this on DVD now. Stay tuned, and we'll fill you in on developments as they happen!
