2016 marks the silver anniversary of the tale as old as time, and Disney will celebrate as Beauty and the Beast becomes the second installment of the Walt Disney Signature Collection.
Beauty and the Beast 25th Anniversary Edition arrives September 6 for digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere, followed by a September 20 Blu-ray release. This is just in time, of course, to whet audience’s appetites for the new live-action Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson, hitting theaters March 2017.
As listed on its Amazon product page, new bonus features for Beauty and the Beast‘s lavish home video reprise include:
- Sneak peek of the live-action Beauty and the Beast
- Menken & Friends: 25 Years of Musical Inspiration
- Always Belle
- Walt, Fairy Tales, and Beauty and the Beast
- The Recording Sessions
- 25 Fun Facts hosted by Disney Channel’s Gus Kamp and Kayla Maisonet
This is in addition to most of the (excellent!) bonus material developed for the film’s previous releases in 2002 and 2010.
The Walt Disney Signature Collection began last January, with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as its inaugural volume. The direction for the series was never quite explained, specifically whether the set would only include films Walt Disney himself contributed to. Now it seems the name is not indicative of that qualifier, and the line should follow in similar footsteps of the Diamond and Platinum sets before it. (For good measure, this means we might expect any assortment or order of The Lion King, Aladdin, Bambi, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, 101 Dalmatians, Sleeping Beauty, and Pinocchio.) With the recent era of the Disney Revival bringing Disney Animation to new heights, it will be intriguing to see if any titles from this new period will be honored and placed alongside its Disney siblings.
