Now that word’s been going around regarding the DVD and Blu-Ray set, EW’s come in with some exclusive details, images, and even a video.
The biggest news is that the prospective release date is a couple of weeks earlier than previously speculated: March 6th. At a guess, this more strongly supports the idea that the premiere of the 2nd season is in the first half of April (Luck wraps its 9-episode season on March 25th, so theoretically Game of Thrones could air as early as April 1st). Best to mark that calendar (and get those pre-orders in, as we suspect the show will be #1 with a bullet at Amazon and other retailers, and who knows if supply will meet demand in the initial rush). Besides that, James Hibberd provides some excellent looks at original art and storyboards for the production.
We had wondered in our post on the topic just what the History extra feature would provide, and Hibberd answers that:
That certainly sounds interesting. As mentioned in the actual box set package, the actors will be narrating in-character, which should add a nice touch to things. The sketches we’ve seen—which I’m guessing are drawn by lead concept artist William Simpson—are a bit obscure, though the first one seems likely to relate to a history of the Night’s Watch.
Hibberd does note that there are no deleted scenes on the BluRays. This is not a surprise, as the producers already informed us that they basically used everything (although there’s one scene in particular that we know they didn’t use, which it seems they’re intent on never letting see the light of day), but good to know. There’s a lot of questions about whether actor audition videos will appear on the extras, something that the executive producers hinted might well be a feature of the box sets, and so far that remains unanswered. I wouldn’t be surprised if short extracts are seen in the exclusive “Making Of” mini-documentary, or perhaps as part of the “Hidden Dragon Eggs”. that are available on the BluRay.
You can preorder the DVDand Blu-Ray sets at Amazon.com, and other retailers as well.