After years of offering season 2 DVDs on his website, Gerard Christopher has suddenly stopped selling them. Is the timing just coincidence... or did maybe Warners shut him down because they're finally ready to put out their own official release?
shareHe is a member of a yahoo group where I am also a member (you find a link to it on his website) and he says he is holding off on selling them because of the high profile claim that WB has Superboy "under consideration" for a late 2006 or early 2007 DVD release. And since he owns the masters for seasons 2-4 they would probably contact him first for high quality source material. I wonder where they will get season 1 from, maybe the Salkynds still have it.
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Posted by throg8: "After years of offering season 2 DVDs on his website, Gerard Christopher has suddenly stopped selling them. Is the timing just coincidence... or did maybe Warners shut him down because they're finally ready to put out their own official release?"
I must correct you about Gerard Christopher offering Superboy season 2 DVDs "after years": He only had them out since June or July of last year, so just at one year of offering the season 2 DVDs.
Prior to that, he was only selling 4 VHS volumes (with 4 episodes each) of selected third and fourth season episodes since 1999, until the DVD set was made last year.
that would be so hot! i loved this show when it was on TV and i can't wait to see it again on DVD.
shareDoes anyone know how Gerard Christopher was able to acquire the masters. I know he did some directing and was a producer on the show which was filmed here in Orlando. It certainly makes sense that Warner Brothers will hold out and release what was given to WB by Viacom for either the theatrical release of Superman Returns or the DVD release. Ilya Salkind had a production office at Universal Orlando for 1492 and the unmade Superman V until 1992 I believe.
shareSince Gerard Christopher later served as a producer on Superboy (can't remember during the third or fourth season), and even ended up being a writer (I think he wrote two episodes), I guess by being a producer he was given copies of episode film masters (I don't think Gerard ever directed an episode of Superboy). Gerard owns film masters to all of the episodes he was in (seasons 2, 3, and 4). Gerard made use of these Superboy episode film masters by offering episodes for sale on his official website. Since 1999 up to 2004 he offered four VHS volumes of Superboy tapes with each video containing 4 episodes each (they were all selected episodes from seasons 3 and 4). In the summer of 2004, due to an overwhelming fan demand, Gerard finally offered DVDs of the show for sale on his website, starting with his first year on the show, Superboy season 2 (1989-1990). It was a three disc set containing all 26 episodes of that season. He had planned to also offer seasons 3 and 4 on his website in the near future, but ended his DVD project in August 2005, after getting a request from the studio Warner Bros. to stop selling DVDs of the show as WB themselves may be in the planning stages of making official DVD releases of Superboy. Only Season 2 was ever released on DVD by Gerard on his website.
I think it was great that Gerard made the effort on making episodes of Superboy available to folks who wanted them. With the legal wrangling that Warner Bros. put on the Superboy series from ever being put on the air ever again in North America (not even as syndicated re-runs), as well as home video of any sort. The visual and audio quality of the episodes he offered on the four VHS tapes and later on the DVD set was excellent, since they were off from his episode masters. It seemed quite obvious that Gerard referred to some sort of professional video duplication company to copy his masters. Although what Gerard did was also "unofficial" or "bootlegging", his tapes and the DVD set was better than compared to what anyone else would get from fan made copies.
You can find the whole series on DVD here:
http://www.mediaenterprises.tv/store/product.php?productid=16326
I'm assuming it's not an official release, so you never know what the quality might be.
I would love to see Superboy on DVD. My only fear is that they might only release season one and it will flop and they won't release the other seasons. After all, season one isn't the best season of Superboy and it definitely had the worst acting of any of the seasons (and that's really saying something because the acting in this show was pretty bad at the best of times).
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the presence of fear and the will to continue.
The Fan base for this show seems really strong, so I think it's a safe bet that this show will be released on dvd. I can only remember fragments of a particular episode so like the other fans of this show im dying to see it again!
if warner brothers doesn't release it on dvd they'll probly be facing a pretty big boycott
If the Superboy TV series ever does get official studio released DVD season sets, I think its safe to say that the entire series will be released. Studios don't just release one season, and then stop there to see how sales go. If sales go poorly, then yes, there might be a longer delay on the release of future seasons, but not to the point the rest of the series won't come out onto DVD. Shows like Party of Five and The Mary Tyler Moore Show had their first seasons released on DVD, but there was a longer gap on when the second seasons came out due to poor sales with the first season releases. That of course has now changed since then for both shows having their second year released (and The Mary Tyler Moore Show has now gone up to its third season as of this writing, coming out later this month).
shareI think a DVD release this year is a certainty due to Superman Returns. The DVD will be released either right before or right after the movie to maximize publicity.
shareyep it has been confirmed by Ilya Salkind it will be released soon near when returns comes out
there has been some activity on jim calverts page started by me
Now, all the other questions start. Are they going to release the entire run? Or, just season one, then wait to see how it sells? Of course, it'll FLY off the shelves. (Did you see what I did there?) Will they have extras, interviews, etc.? A lot of stuff went one during the early years. It'll be nice to hear what really went on.
shareThey will release Season 1 first and then the others will follow.
It will have extras - commentary, interviews etc.
It'll probably be released around the time "Superman Returns" comes out.
HALLELUJAH, MY BROTHERS! This show is finally coming to DVD, where it belongs. Even if this show had crap acting, crap special effects, and often crap storylines, it was awesome. Don't ask me how, it just is, okay? I can't get enough of this show.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the presence of fear and the will to continue.
Though I don't agree with your "crap" assessment (maybe "campy," but not "crap") I can tell you how or why it worked so well -- ILYA SALKIND. The original movie worked for the same reason -- perfectly balanced TONE.
If someone else produced Superman, it would have failed. It's like the way the X-Files was. If you described the plot of an episode to a friend, it would sound funny (in a bad way). But somehow, week in and week out, they pulled it off. Having watched the latest Nightstalker and trying to watch Supernatural (and trying hard to like them), I usually end up being disappointed because they can't pull off what the X-Files could. You just can't copy tone.
The tone of the original Superman series was perfect. So, was the tone of Superboy. And, that's due to Ilya Salkind.
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