Call it "cult meets cult." Shout! Factory, the independent DVD supplier known for its affinity for cult movies and TV shows, has secured worldwide home entertainment and digital download rights to the long-running cult TV series "Mystery Science Theater 3000."
The multiyear deal gives Shout! Factory exclusive physical and electronic distribution rights to all "Mystery Science Theater 3000" branded properties -- including a vast library of original episodes that have never before been issued on DVD or available for digital download.
That's a quote from Thomas K. Arnold's story this morning at
The Hollywood Reporter, discussing how Best Brains, Inc. has decided not to renew Rhino Home Video's license for
Mystery Science Theater 3000 and instead move the property over to the Shout! Factory for all future DVD releases.
Shout! Factory is helmed by Garson Foos. Garson and his brother Richard used to run Rhino, until the company was purchased by Time Warner. Rhino (and Rhino's distributors, Ryko and WEA) are currently owned by the Warner Music Group, which was spun off from Time Warner and currently bills themselves as the only stand-alone music company to be publicly traded in the United States. Rhino has moved away from the TV-DVD field in recent years and focused on musical entries. Rhino's final DVDs of this particular show will be their
Feb. 5th re-release, Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Collection: Volume 10.2.
Shout! Factory bills themselves as "
a diversified entertainment company devoted to producing, uncovering and revitalizing the very best of pop culture...[whose] DVD offerings serve up classic, contemporary and cult TV series, riveting sports programs, live music, animation and documentaries in lavish packages crammed with extras." For this reason Best Brains felt that Shout! would be the best fit, and the logical "heir" to the licencse for their popular cult series. Shout! had already made an effort to appeal to
MST3K fans with their
Film Crew DVD releases, starring
MST3K alumni Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy ("Tom Servo") and Bill Corbett ("Crow").
The story at
The Hollywood Reporter states that all
MST3K properties are included in this deal, but actually the rights to the big-screen version spoofing
This Island Earth continue to be held by Universal Studios. But don't worry! As I
reported at TVGuide.com earlier this week, Universal Studios Home Entertainment has just announced a long-awaited (and anamorphic!) DVD re-release of
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. It will cost only $19.98 SRP (as opposed to the high eBay prices for the ten-year-old OOP Image release), and arriving on May 6th.
Our good friends at the Satellite News website (MST3Kinfo.com) have
the complete press release about this change, and also comment that "
Shout Factory says they are looking at the first release around mid-year and they have not made any decisions about what whether they will be single releases or sets." Head over there for more information, and stay tuned for info about Shout!'s first DVDs of this hugely popular show.
