R4 set for August 21 street date
Various Oz-based DVD and movie info-tainment sites are reporting today that Universal Home Video Australia has confirmed an August street date in Region 4 for the Back to the Future Trilogy DVDs.
The Australian-based online retailer EzyDVD raised a few eyebrows yesterday when they began taking pre-orders for the Back to the Future Trilogy 3 Disc Set for release on August 21, along with publishing preliminary artwork for the international release. I must admit, at first glance I was convinced that the artwork was the site's own concoction made collectively from artwork previously released on the 15th Anniversary VHS Boxed Set released in Australia and the Malaysian VCDs issued two years ago. Alas, this wasn't the case afterall.
Today, popular down-under consumer DVD site Michael D's Region 4 DVD Info Page reported that Universal Home Video Australia had officially announced the titles for August 21 to tie in with the Australian Father's Day holiday. Not being able to confirm this through a published press release anywhere, I dropped a line to our contacts at Universal Pictures International Video in London to get their comments on the release date and published artwork. Below was their response:
"These are preliminary designs that are issued to our trade to give them a very rough idea of direction. Unfortunately this is not official artwork."
"Furthermore, the release date has not been confirmed so I wouldn't want to mislead you with speculation."
The London office has promised me that they'll keep BTTF.com in the loop as soon as they finalize further details regarding this worldwide release. Unfortunately, I have no point of contact within the Australia offices of Universal Home Video to confirm the August 21 release date, and thus had considered the date to be only tentative (but highly probable) until Universal Australia issues a formal press release.
However, "Michael D" who does has direct studio contacts at Universal Australia has indeed confirmed the street date with them. After having spoken today with him, I have been able to verify his source for the information and it does indeed appear to be true — THE BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY - SPECIAL EDITION ON DVD WILL BE OUT 21ST AUGUST 2002!! The Region 4 release features (which are pretty much set), along with official artwork and technical details will be forthcoming very soon. Michael tells me that while the Australian office hadn't received the exact run-down of bonus features for the discs yet from the home office (which may explain why London considers the date unconfirmed at the moment), they told him that BTTF.com's features list published last week "sounded pretty much spot-on".
Since our report a week ago, we've been inundated with emails & calls regarding the features for each film. Yes, we realize that the list we published had a few questionable entries, and we're trying to get answers to each of these questions through our studio sources. Yes, we noticed the obvious omission of trailers from the features list. We also noticed that there was no documentary listed for Back to the Future 3's disc (e.g. "The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy"). And we are certainly aware that hoverboards were not in the first Back to the Future, which makes the "HOVER BOARD TEST on location." listing seem like an obvious typo. We simply published what was given to us, and are awaiting clarification on these questions and more.
Stand by for much more news regarding the worldwide release coming very soon... [Thanks to "Michael D" for his contributions to this story!]
R4 set for August 21 street date
