Futurama R1 DVDs- An Impossibility? (1 Viewer)

[Skoobooz]

Because I am sick and too lazy to search for others, I shall post this as a new discovery. According to Ain't It Cool News (I know, I know...), Futurama is not being picked up for Season Five. And, according to one of their sources inside the show, Futurama will be 16 episodes short of reaching syndication. The insider went on to speculate that R1 DVDs are now somewhat of an impossibility. If true, this would be miserable, awful, no-good, very bad news. I can only hope someone on the forum has more news, or can salvage my hopes of eventual (ie: in the next year) Futurama season by season DVDs.

 

[Frank Anderson]

I am sure there is still a possibility of seeing them on DVD one day. Just because a show does not hit syndication does not mean all chances of a DVD are out.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

65 eps is the minimum for a half hour show to go broadcast syndicated. They're fine. Even so, I'm sure Sci-Fi or FX will run the show, heck, SciFi has run shows with only 6 episodes

 

[BrianB]

Surely if it doesn't reach enough episodes to hit syndication, it'll mean it's out on DVD sooner? The reason behind delays if a show is in syndication is they don't want the competition of a dvd release...

Well, it's a straw to clutch at I guess.

 

[Keith Paynter]

Police Squad survived with only six episodes and enough cult viewings to survive to make three movies, so there is always hope...

 

[Michael Boyd]

I just ordered the R2 box set just for fun. £30 at Amazon UK. Whats that? $45? Never had any R2 discs before, guess I can play them on my new Dell 8200. It says I can change the region 4 more times.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

A word of warning Michael, your DVD-ROM may be hardware locked to Region 1, so you'll have to flash the firmware to make it all region. You'll need a program called DVDGenie to reset the Windows software region

 

[Dan Brecher]

As someone who buys R2 discs once in a blue moon, I did get the R2 Futurama season 1 release and it is very nicely done.

I definately see it hitting R1 soon enough, mainly because I don't believe all this work would have been put into a release only R2/R4 would get, meaning the creators and contributors could not even own the set on region 1 themselves! It'll come.

Dan

 

[Craig S]

That statement about "no syndication, so no DVDs" just doesn't make any sense. If they don't have enough episodes to go into syndication, then releasing them to home video is the ONLY way they're going to make money off of them.

Look at the short-lived "Clerks" animated series. Only 6 episodes made, so no syndication. So they packaged them into a nice DVD set and Kevin Smith's fans lapped them up.

If the owners of "Futurama" perceive there's money to be made from a DVD release, they'll find a way to get them on the shelves. Simple as that.

 

[Adam Tyner]

The Futon Critic posted today that there are 72 produced episodes, 49 of which have aired. It should be fine for syndication.

He goes onto say that "With 20th Century Fox already looking into syndication deals for the series don't necessarily count out the show as dead just yet - something that thanks to the horrendous reporting by the folks at Ain't It Cool News and Slashdot people already have assumed."

 

[Joshua Moran]

I urge everyone to visit http://www.gotfuturama.com/ there is a petition to reinstate the show. It already has 20,000 names signed as of Wensday when the announcement was mad.

 

[Craig S]

Wow! The "Futurama" petition is now up to almost 46,000 names!

 

[Joshua Moran]

I personally feel that Futurama is putting out better content than the Simpsons. It is just that it is at an awful time slot. But anyway this just in.

Futurama (TV): Exec Producer David X. Cohen has finally gone on the record to Cinescape about the status of the show - which isn't exactly cancelled it seems: "We're in what is basically an unprecedented situation in that we have so many new episodes that haven't aired yet, literally enough episodes to run the rest of this year and all of next year...So we're not cancelled in the sense that we're still on the air, we still expect to be on the air next year. We may even have a few more episodes than that than the number necessary to run this season and next season". Will there be further episodes produced though? No - "I'm still incredibly busy working on the episodes that people haven't seen yet. The show gets better and better. There are a lot of great episodes that are still going to be on. Obviously, they are letting us go out of production which means we're going to lose all of our writers and probably all of our animators. In the event which is probably a long shot, but by no means zero chance that they do decide they do want more episodes down the line. A whole new team would have to be put together, which is a big task". Thanks to 'Ant'.

 

[Joel C]

Well, this sucks. Too bad they didn't stick with it. Futurama and Malcolm were the only two shows on Fox that were young enough and of enough quality to keep going for many more years.

Simpsons will be around, I'm sure, but Futurama has been more energized of late. And while I love King of the Hill, it's been on what, eight years? And it has never found the same popularity as the Simpsons, which might mean it will be gone soon too.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Actually, this could speed up DVD release... if they can't sell it for syndication, they have no reason to delay the DVD releases.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Of course they can syndicate it

Freaks & Geeks is running in syndication with only 22 eps, ANYTHING can be syndicated. I'm betting it and Family Guy show up on FX soon enough

 

[MaxY]

The 65 number is for shows that are currently still in production. If the show goes out of production then can syndicate with however many eps there are.

There have been lots of shows that had less then 65 eps shown in syndication.

Max