Shout! Factory Churns Out Fan Favorites

26 Jul, 2014 By: Angelique Flores

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SAN DIEGO — Shout! Factory used its July 25 panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International to offer some insight into how the company creates its special packaged-media sets while making a slew of announcements of upcoming releases.

“I would immediately go to fan forums and ask those folks what would make these DVD sets the absolute best DVD sets you can have,” said Brian Ward, director of DVD production. “For certain series or movies, we may not be huge fans going in, but I certainly watch every episode of every TV show I ever do … and I watch movies because I need to know it. And then I go to the people that know it really well. I think the hubris would just be too great if we didn’t use fan input on things.

“I think that’s what makes us difference from most of the other studios. The other studios will announce things right before its ready to come out. We announce things six months earlier.”

Jeff Nelson, senior marketing director of horror imprint Scream Factory, has had more than just suggestions from fan on his titles.

“We often get help from fans on certain releases,” Nelson. “We released The Final Terror this year, an early ’80s slasher film that had never seen the light of DVD or Blu-ray, and we had a fan contact us and give us prints of the film because we were having trouble finding elements. So that release happened actually because of two fans that sent us prints. We value fan feedback.”

Some of the big announcements for Shout! Factory this year are the upcoming releases of the 1989 Weird Al Yankovic film UHF, which will be released in November; Mystery Science Theater 3000: Turkey Day with Thanksgiving episodes and some new material; and “Super Sentai Zyuranger,” which is the first U.S. DVD release of the Japanese series on which "Mighty Morphin Powers Rangers" is based. Ward also hinted at a complete series set of “Facts of Life” next year.

Also arriving this fall is the complete series set of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” which was first announced at last year’s Comic-Con. Shout! Factory this year again showed some off some restored clips of the series that arrives Oct. 21 as an eight-disc Blu-ray boxed set at $149.99.

Melissa Boag, VP of family and kids, also revealed some upcoming titles under the Shout! Kids line: Slugterra: Return of the Elementals arrives in theaters Aug. 2; Thunder and the House of Magic, which debuts in theaters Sept. 5 and on disc and digital Sept. 30; My Little Pony: Equestria Girls — Rainbow Rocks, which hits theaters nationwide Sept. 27; and Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, which opens in theaters Sept. 24 and arrives on disc and digital Oct. 7 as a BD combo pack for $24.97 and DVD for $16.97.

The Scream Factory line also features a busy slate of fan favorite horror movies coming to Blu-ray, some for the first time.

Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut arrives Oct. 28 as a limited-edition three-disc Blu-ray set for $79.97 and special-edition Blu-ray combo pack for $29.93. The limited edition is limited to 10,000 copies.

Partnering with Anchor Bay Entertainment for the first time, Scream Factory will release Halloween: The Complete Collection as a 10-disc Blu-ray boxed Sept. 23 for $129.99. The Halloween: The Complete Collection Deluxe Edition Blu-ray boxed set arrives the same day with 15 discs for $169.99. The sets include all the “Halloween” movies, new bonus materials, collectible packaging and a 40-page book.

Nelson gave a sneak peek of a clip with Jamie Lee Curtis from the Halloween H20 documentary that is included in the sets.

Starting in November through 2015, Scream Factory will also release on Blu-ray a number of horror classic horror movies: George A. Romero’s The Dark Half (arriving in November) and Monkey Shines, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, Scarecrows, The Phantom of the Opera with Robert Englund, New Year’s Evil and Invaders From Mars. Scream Factory is also releasing collector’s editions of Dolls (arriving in November), Mad Max and John Carpenter’s Escape From New York.

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