We
reported a week ago that word had begun to leak out to retailers about a
June 16th street date for
The Transformers - The Complete 1st Season: 25th Anniversary Edition on DVD, bringing a long-awaited re-release of the first 16 half-hours of the original (and legendary) "G1" series. Retailers knew the title of this 3-disc set, and the pricing ($29.98 SRP), but there was some confusion as to which studio would be releasing it. Walmart.com said "UMVD" (Universal Music Video Distribution), which is another name for Vivendi Entertainment...a distribution company best known for getting DVDs into the retail channel on behalf of Shout! Factory. But Shout! would neither confirm or deny anything regarding this title, when asked. Or ANY titles related to Hasbro or the Sunbow library, for that matter.
So we were surprised today when an industry source, on condition of remaining anonymous, supplied us with the below 3D look at the package art for this set! As you can see, it's similar to the temp art which we brought you last time (from Walmart.com's listing), but enhanced with all of the titles and logos and such, and the key art has been corrected (Megatron was reversed on the previous image). Shout's logo, although small, is plainly seen on the lower left corner of the spine. Is it accurate artwork, or just fan-made? Well, besides the source being super-trustworthy from contributions in the past, the title has now gone
up for pre-order at Amazon, and the same package art is displayed there. It's also available to
pre-order at DVDEmpire, and the listings at both e-tailers say "Shout! Factory".
Here's a large look at that revised package art. The source which provided the graphic to us says that it won't be too long now before an announcement comes along which makes everything crystal clear. Stay tuned for that!
