Thursday, June 1, 2017

Will & Grace - Jack's Back! And So Are Karen, Will and Grace with 'Season 1' DVDs!

Will & Grace - Jack's Back! And So Are Karen, Will and Grace with 'Season 1' DVDs!


Universal to make the first 22 episodes available for home video again this August

Posted by David Lambert
6/01/2017
 
Before NBCUniversal was formed by the May 2004 merging of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) with Vivendi Universal Entertainment (thus forming the company which has been wholly owned by Comcast for the past four years), the home video rights to NBC-owned television shows were normally licensed out to other studios for release on DVD. After the joining of NBCUniversal, it's natural that NBC-owned programs would be released for DVD through Universal Studios Home Entertainment, of course. Where a show was licensed out to other companies, though, Universal would have to wait for the old license to expire before re-releasing it...IF there was a reason to put it back out again.

Between the summer of 2003 and late summer 2008, Lionsgate Entertainment - who had been awarded the contract with this show's license - put out season sets (and a Complete Series package) for all 8 seasons of Will & Grace on DVD. Those items are all out-of-print, though, because Lionsgate's license has since expired. Each release can often be found on the "used home video" market...but mostly at inflated prices which can make it hard for just regular fans to pick up and enjoy. Anyone who didn't get these releases back in the day, and isn't willing to pay "collector" prices for the DVDs, seemingly has missed the boat. Or have they?

As many of you know, this past September a 9½-minute Will & Grace 2016 Election video was released, reuniting Eric McCormack as "Will," Debra Messing as "Grace," Megan Mullally as "Karen," and Sean Hayes as "Jack" once again, and urging folks to #VoteHoney in the election for president. While not everybody liked the "message" of the video itself (feeling like it pushed one candidate more than the other), it was clear to fans that the chemistry of these characters still remained ten years after the 2006 finale aired. So at the beginning of 2017, NBC announced that a new Season 9 would be commissioned for Will & Grace, to air in the 2017-2018 TV season, with all four of the above-named starring cast returning! First planned for nine or ten episodes, in April NBC increased the order to 12 episodes.

With that revival coming soon (no debut date has been scheduled so far; the powers-that-be merely say ""Thursdays This Fall"), the folks at Universal Studios Home Entertainment have decided that the time is right to re-release Will & Grace - Season 1 on DVD. It will be available in stores all over again, on August 29th, for $29.98 SRP. This will come on 3 discs, and includes English subtitles. Unlike the old 2003 release, this one seems to be a bare-bones, episodes-only set with no bonus material. Package art for this re-release hasn't been distributed yet, so we don't know at this time if it will be the same look as the old release, or if they are going for something new. Stay tuned and we'll bring you that artwork as soon as we can! Below is the studio's description of this title, and you can pre-order it from Amazon right away!
    Meet Will & Grace. Grace is a sassy and smart interior designer, Will is a gorgeous and super-cool lawyer. They're both looking for love and they're made for each other in every way but one - Grace is straight, Will is gay. Their lives are complicated even further by their outrageous friends, Karen and Jack who meet for the first time.

No comments:

Post a Comment