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Street date hide and seek
August 6, 2007

Check out the July 30th WaxWorks/VideoWorks mailer for a prime example of what the windows game has come to. Pages 10 and 11 carry an ad for Fox's Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, coming on DVD...  well, it doesn't say when it's coming. 

According to the ad, the title is available as both a single "flipper" DVD ($27.98 SRP, $19.95 MAP, $43.48 Canadian), and "The Power Cosmic Edition" 2-Disc Set. Preorder date for direct accounts and pre-packs through distribution is Aug. 8--the day after tomorrrow--with single orders through distribution due Sept. 5. The street date is... well, it doesn't say when it's coming.

Make sure you get your orders in, though. Two weeks ago, VB reported that retailers are expecting Silver Surfer on Oct. 2, and based on the prebook dates I'm thinking that's a pretty fair bet. 

The fact that the street date is not in such a detailed trade ad just goes to show to what lengths studios will go to get their home entertainment business done will hiding the DVD release date from theater owners and the press. (Theater owners hate to read DVD release announcements in, say, USA Today, while they're still devoting screens to a waning blockbuster.)

In the case of Silver Surfer, it doesn't even have a particularly short theatrical-to-DVD window, with more than 15 weeks between its June 15 theatrical premiere and an early October DVD bow. 

In our story of two weeks ago, VB reported the expected dates for a number of summer theatrical blockbusters (based on info from multiple retail sources) and we got our keyboard-tapping fingers slapped by more than one studio--not for publishing anything incorrect, necessarily, but for jumping the "announce." 

Since we reported in that story that retailers were expecting Shrek the Third on Nov. 13, the title has been officially announced for ... Nov. 13. And Spider-Man 3 has been announced for Oct. 30, a date retailers had circled for weeks before it became official.

Most, if not all, of the summer blockbusters have obviously been "announced" to key retailers...





 



 

Posted by Marcy Magiera on August 6, 2007 | Comments (0)