Beverly Hills 90210 Reunion Sunday Night

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Info from tvshowsondvd:

We are pleased to be among the first - perhaps even THE first - to report that Beverly Hills, 90210 is coming to DVD this coming spring.

Artisan Entertainment, who was recently purchased by Lions Gate Entertainment (the deal was finalized today), has penciled onto their 2004 schedule a pair of DVD releases for 90210.

First the bad news: Artisan does not have the clearance to do complete season sets, nor will they have time to get such clearances. As with Charmed, the rights to all Spelling Entertainment shows, including 90210, revert to Paramount in 2005. Paramount's parent company integrated Spelling Entertainment into their corporation back in March 1999, when the Viacom board of directors approved an offer to purchase the remaining stock for the succesful production company. At the time of the offer they owned 80% of all stock in Aaron Spelling's company.

Artisan's DVD plans, therefore, are limited to 2 single-disc releases: The Pilot, which is the 2-hour-long (with commercials) show that introduced us to the Walsh family as they set up home - and school - in what would soon become America's most famous zip code. The other release is The Graduation, based on the double-length Season 3 finale, "Commencement". The focus here is on the end of high school, and all the changes in store for the 90210 gang.

Both of these were previously released by Artisan - under their "Republic" banner - on VHS, and those tapes included supplements such as cast interviews and music videos. It's too early to say yet whether these extras, or any others, will make it onto the planned DVDs. However, it certainly is possible we'll see them, or perhaps different bonus material.

Both of these extended episodes featured some classic rock songs on them, such as "Boulevard" by Jackson Brown and "School's Out" by Alice Cooper. It will bear watching to see whether these soundtracks can be delivered intact, or if instead the ugly monster of music rights costs will rear it's head.

IF these obstacles can be avoided, and all goes well, then Artisan hopes that you can buy these (at a reasonable, but as-yet-unnamed, price) as soon as May 18, 2004. But keep in mind that nothing is set in stone yet, and that no official announcement has been made by the studio. This news is just a heads-up, and nothing more. Stay tuned, because we'll keep you posted, as always.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Info from tvshowsondvd:

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!

[msclrules]

i've seen it before! i loved it!!