Displaying items by tag: Batman: The Classic Series

So the big news today is that Warner Home Video has announced their Batman 75th Anniversary celebration plans. As many of you know, the character first appeared in the comic book Detective Comics #27, which hit newsstands on March 30, 1939. That makes this Sunday the character’s official 75th Anniversary. And if the deliberate leak by WHV earlier this year (with assist by Conan O’Brien) wasn’t official enough, the studio has now confirmed that the classic Adam West and Burt Ward Batman ‘66 TV series will arrive on Blu-ray and DVD this year, though they are still yet to announce a street date (we suspect you’ll hear more at Warner’s Batman 75th panel at WonderCon in Anaheim next month, or at San Diego Comic-Con in July). Warner has also set the all-new animated films Son of Batman for release on BD/DVD on 5/6, followed by Assault on Arkham this summer. Warner also has a pair of new animated shorts coming this year from Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series) and Darwyn Cooke (Batman Beyond). You’ll get a new Batman: 25th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray release of the Tim Burton film. Obviously, there’s the new Gotham TV series coming to FOX later this year. And production begins this year on the new Batman vs. Superman feature film. Lotta Batman for one year. We’d sure love to see the Bruce Timm animated series find its way to Blu-ray this year, but no sign of it yet. Anyway... [Read on here...]

Well… we’re back from Comic-Con!  There’s lot of entertainment news to report from the event these days (including word that the next Man of Steel film will be a team-up with Superman and Batman), but the Blu-ray/DVD release news is excellent and abundant too…

First up, on our own Digital Bits BD Producers panel, we exclusively revealed that Shout! Factory is currently hard at work on a fully-remastered Blu-ray box set of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse: The Complete Series.  The show was originally finished on 1-inch analog tape, but it was shot on film and star Paul Rubens has all the original 16 and 35mm negative.  So it’s all being scanned in full HD and then digitally restored and remastered.  Rubens himself is working closely with producer Brian Ward and the Shout! team to create new special features, so it should be pretty terrific.  We showed a special video preview during our panel that offered fans a glimpse of the restoration work, with before and after comparisons.  It looks absolutely amazing!  (We’ll see if there’s any chance we can show it to you here.)  The set is expected to be released sometime in early 2014.  The exact time frame will depend on how long it takes to finish the restoration properly – they don’t want to rush it, they want to get it right.  Watch this space for more details.