You heard right! Disney’s Hercules and Tarzan, fan favorites from the end of the 90s era, are going to get Blu-ray releases.
There was no official announcement about this from the Mouse House, but rather the company quietly updated the Hercules and Tarzan pages for these films with pictures of the Blu-ray packaging and the phrase “Coming Soon”. Disney didn’t give release dates for the films, although they most likely will be released on the same day sometime this summer. Much like how The Emperor’s New Groove, Lilo & Stitch and Atlantis: The Lost Empire were announced in March and released in June.
The covers are pretty bland and standard. These may be temporary covers, which Disney frequently does for it’s Blu-rays and art of books, but guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
The Tarzan cover is the same cover that was used for the 2005 special edition cover, except that it’s been updated with the Blu-ray packaging. However, it will be a “special edition”, whatever that means to Disney. It also curiously will contain only a Blu-ray and digital copy–no DVD. Not sure if that was a typo or if it really is the case, but it would be a major departure from the way Disney has released Blu-rays in the past. Also, good news for purists: Tarzan won’t be packaged with one of its less-than-desirable sequels. So if you don’t want those, you won’t be forced to buy them. Hallelujah!
The Hercules cover is a new design, but it’s still rather boring. Nothing like this beautiful, stylized French cover. But looks like Disney continues to show no love to the mighty Hercules as this release will get a special edition. The combo pack, however, will include a Blu-ray, DVD and digital copy.
No word on bonus features. I’m sure that info will bubble to surface closer to when these are released. Hercules has never had decent bonus features and it seems likely that it won’t get it this time either (especially since this doesn’t have any specials sort of edition title). Tarzan had a great set of features when it was initially released on DVD in 2000, but I’d bet that we don’t get anything new with that film either.
The films aren’t available for pre-order yet, but once they are, we will update this page with the info.
Pre-order
Hercules: Amazon
Tarzan: Amazon