In case you didn’t already hear the bad news, the Werewolf: The Series DVD set that Shout! Factory was working on has been scrapped indefinitely, thanks to the greed of the music industry. Two of the bands whose songs were used in scenes refused to grant permission to use the music for the same scenes on the DVD. None of the official sources are naming the bands, but if word around the campfire is true, these assholes wanted more money than Shout! Factory was reasonably able to pay. The audio tracks for the scenes were mixed down, so the offending songs and the critical dialog can’t be separated and re-mixed with different, less-made-by-greedy-clowns songs. I’m sharing this now because the original posts I made about the DVD set are still getting a lot of (presumably hopeful) traffic.
Tag: werewolf tv series
Set Your TV Dial to “Werewolf”
“Wolf” wrote in with a reminder that the History Channel is running two werewolf-related shows on Wednesday, October 28th.
08:00 PM MonsterQuest: American Werewolf
The werewolf is a centuries-old legend based on myth, not a real animal. However, local eyewitnesses in Wisconsin and Michigan report seeing a dogman–a tall hairy man-beast. Professional hunters and trackers armed with tranquilizer guns will be deployed in an area of recent sightings to find this creature. For the first time polygraphs and hypnosis will be used on eyewitnesses with astonishing results. One-part history, one-part science and one part monster, discover the truth behind legendary monsters.
09:00 PM The Real Wolfman
Follow veteran criminal profiler George Deuchar and renowned cryptozoologist, Ken Gerhardt as they investigate the legend of the notorious Wolfman. Between the years of 1764 and 1767, the small French hamlet of Gevaudan was plagued by a mysterious beast that attacked and killed 102 villagers. The victims (mostly women and children) were all maliciously mauled and decapitated. All bore the bite marks of a non-human creature, and even more bizarre, many victims were found undressed and sexually assaulted. For centuries, the true identify of this mysterious “wolfman” has remained a mystery. Digging deeply into the mythology of Werewolves, they uncover reported paranormal transformations, diseases that make men look and act like animals, strange but true stories of children raised by wolves, and the truth about wolfsbane and silver bullets. Their modern-day forensic investigation leads them to the horrific truth behind the Werewolf murders.
Damn It – Werewolf Series DVD Postponed until at least 2010
I missed this last week, with all the Wolfman trailer and Warcraft hoopla. ArcLight wrote in with the not-awesome news that the DVD release of Werewolf: The Series has been officially postponed and won’t be coming out in 2009. It seems that there are some problems licensing some of the music used in the show’s soundtrack, and the way the sound was mixed makes it impossible to replace / remove the music. Brian Ward, one of the DVD producers at Shout! Factory, posted an explanation in the Shout! Factory forum:
In order to extract the music, we would literally need to extract the scenes completely. And these are some fairly important scenes that, in some cases, run several minutes. So we’re still working on figuring it all out. It’s a great set and I hope to see it released shortly. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to be on the books for ’09… There are only a couple songs giving us trouble, but they’re EXPENSIVE songs and we’re just not sure we’d sell enough to meet the record labels’ prices and still make any money whatsoever. We’ve not stopped pursuing it. We’ve put together a great set with some cool extras and a BEAUTIFUL cover, in my opinion. I want people to own it. Hopefully, sometime soon, they will.
Thanks, record labels. You guys just keep on finding ways to endear yourselves to the public, don’t you?
“Werewolf” Series DVD Release Date Pushed Back, Pre-Order + Two Features Announced
The eagerly anticipated 5-DVD release of the Werewolf TV series was originally scheduled for a September 1st release, but now TVShowsOnDVD.com is saying that the date has been pushed back to October 6th. These are the folks who originally broke the story about Werewolf being officially released, so I’m gonna go ahead and trust them on this one.
No word on what caused the delay, but it might be that Shout! Factory wants a bit more time to cram the discs full of extras and features, two of which have been announced: “The Man Who Was Alamo Joe” with actor Lance LeGault, and “To Build A Better Werewolf” with special makeup FX creators Greg Cannom and Gino Crognale.
One last thing, and it might be the best news yet: if you’re like me and you can’t keep your release dates straight, you can pre-order Werewolf: The Complete Series
Hat-tip to ArcLight for the info.
Dread Central Scoops the “Werewolf” Series DVD Cover
Two weeks ago we were talking about the imminent release of the entire Werewolf TV series on DVD. Now it seems the folks at Dread Central have wielded their charm and managed to get an exclusive copy of the package’s cover art! Behold the glory, the beauty, the lycanthropy, the dramatic lighting:
The series is being remastered, repackaged and re-released by Shout! Factory on September 1st.
Tip to the entertainment industry: permit more exciting, beautiful re-releases like this one is shaping up to be, and you will induce people to use their credit cards instead of µTorrent or Transmission.
Thanks to Dread Central for obtaining this. One day I hope to be as cool and influential as you.
“Werewolf” TV Series Coming to DVD
Back in 1987, when I was six and too young to care about what was on TV after the cartoons were over, Fox ran a series called Werewolf. It only lasted for 28 episodes (plus a 2-hour pilot), but today it still lives on in the form of extremely thorough fan sites, bootleg DVDs and episodes posted to YouTube. The plot was nothing ground-breaking (werewolf evades bounty hunter while searching for a cure to his “curse”), but the werewolf effects were handled by everyone’s favourite werewolf creator, Rick Baker.
Now, after 22 years of VHS copies and sketchy DVD bootlegs, TVShowsOnDVD.com has learned that Werewolf is being re-released on DVD. Shout! Factory is currently working on a package called Werewolf – The Complete Series. Details of the package’s contents aren’t available yet, but with a tentative release date of September 1st 2009, Shout! Factory has got the summer to (hopefully) cram the DVDs full of extras. I know I’m not alone in hoping there’s an extended featurette on Baker’s kick-ass seven-foot-tall werewolf costumes!