Mill Creek Details Future Ultraman Home Video Release Plans

Mill Creek, in their "Our Hero, Ultraman" panel at this year's Kaiju Con and in the Sci-Fi Japan Facebook group revealed their future plans for Ultraman's North American home video release. 

​For starters, Mill Creek's Keith Aiken revealed in said Facebook group, that Tsuburaya is doing HD remasters of pretty much everything they own. That said, Andro Melos is not part of the Mill Creek license as apparently, Tsuburaya had trouble in locating the masters. For fans who want more English dubbed 1966 Ultraman, the uncut dub tapes were misplaced, so they don't have any access to every episode, but once all of it were found, Mill Creek has plans to release it. Same thing applies with the French dub.

For fans of the Heisei Ultraman era, Mill Creek is working on it backwards, so right now, the focus is on classic shows, which includes Ultraman 80. That said, the next in the series, Ultraman Taro is tentatively set for a January 2021 release. Speaking of Heisei Ultraman and fans of the Ultraman Tiga dub, due to how the 4Kids dub is edited not syncing with the HD remasters and that the dub wasn't finished, there is a chance that the English dub might be its own separate release. 

For Ultraman Cosmos, Tsuburaya only offered the standard cut of Ultraman Cosmos 2: The Blue Planet film, although the alternate cut the film, Ultraman Cosmos 2: The Blue Planet - Young Musashi Chapter could end up being included. The Young Musashi Chapter cut was made after Taiyo Sugiura, the actor who played Musashi Haruno/Ultraman Cosmos' actor was arrested and his scenes were replaced with newly filmed parts. 

The Ultraman Nexus set will also include Ultraman: The Next, a movie that serves as the prequel to the events of Ultraman Nexus. 

As for Ultraman Mebius, its future box set is said to contain the main series and all three side stories, namely: Hikari Saga, Armored Darkness, and Ghost Rebirth. Next is with Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle, the series is set for a tentative Spring 2021 release and the set will include: Season 1, Season 2 - Never Ending Odyssey, Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy the Movie, and Ultraman Zero vs. Darklops Zero. Leading us to how Ultraman Zero will be released in home video. 

Unlike most Ultraman, Ultraman Zero didn't have a proper TV series, but a series of movies and direct-to-video adventures. That said, Mill Creek will release Zero's story in a series of home video releases. The current time table for the Ultraman Zero releases at the moment are: 

• Ultraman Zero the Movie: Revenge of Belial - Spring 2021, said release will include some bonus content
• Ultraman Zero: The Chronicle w/ Killer the Beatstar - Spring 2021
• Ultraman Saga - Spring 2021, said release will include the English dub

Mill Creek's upcoming Ultraman Ginga and Ultraman Ginga S release will use the same materials Crunchyroll received from Tsuburaya. The Crunchyroll release only included the 1st Theater Special, and does not include 2nd Theater Special and the extra episode from Shin Ultraman Retsuden titled "Friends Left Behind". 

Now for some movies, Ultraman Zearth is the oldest movie Mill Creek has in the current deal. In addition, there hasn't been a final decision if Ultraman Zearth's English dub will be included in the Blu-ray because the release is still several months away, but Mill Creek is intending to have it on the set. 

Tsuburaya doesn't own the international distribution rights of Ultra Q the Movie: Legend of the Stars. In addition, The Six Ultra Brothers vs. Monster Army film, which is a co-production with Thailand's Chaiyo Productions will never get a release. As for Ultraman vs. Kamen Rider, since it is a co-production with Toei, Tsuburaya can't offer it for international sales. 

As for stuff not coming out yet, it includes: Ultra Q: Dark Fantasy, Ultraman: Towards the Future (known in Japan as Ultraman Great), Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero (known in Japan as Ultraman Powered), and Ultraman: The Adventure Begins (known in Japan as Ultraman USA). As for Towards the Future, the series wasn't part of their deal with Tsuburaya due to its rights being tied up elsewhere and those need to expire first before a new deal could be made. If they will get the chance to release it, they'll try to include the two compilation films. Ultraman Story and the Ultraman: Super Fighter Legend OVA not part of the current deal. Mill Creek could acquire older movies in the future, but it will probably after most of the content has been released.

As for future Ultraman releases, the deal was made around the time Ultraman R/B was in production. Tsuburaya at the moment, has plans on licensing Ultraman Taiga whenever the rights become available. In addition, Mill Creek is also interested in releasing the 2019 ULTRAMAN anime once the home video rights for it are available. Ultraman Kids: 3,000 Light Years in Search of Mother is one of their future releases.

For some extras such as "making of" specials, it is a little tricky due to a lot of old Japanese contracts didn't include international rights to use the likeness of the cast and crew, making this a difficult situation, but Mill Creek hopes to have more extras in the sets, but it depends on what Tsuburaya will approve. 

The only non-Ultraman release that Mill Creek has license to as part of the Tsuburaya deal is Gridman: The Hyper Agent. In addition, to coincide with Gridman's release, Mill Creek may reissue the Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad DVDs. As to when they will release it, no details on when. Lastly, Mill Creek is considering doing early digital releases via the movieSpree app on some titles such as Gridman so that fans can watch the show months before its Blu-ray release. 

That said, stay tuned for Ultraman Galaxy for future Ultraman home video release updates.

[Source: Vintage Henshin, Jumbalia23]