Sicoe Vlad wrote:I was thinking, maybe The Little Mermaid will be the next entry in the Signature Collection. [...] Maybe Jodi Benson's post on Instagram was the first official promotional announcement for this release. So, I think there could be a chance that Mermaid will be the next one. In this case, I'm super excited to see the new cover art, bonus features and, of course, the trailer.
I want to believe it, but it would be difficult to when you consider the amount of lead time between Jodi's Instagram post, a press release, and a street date for the disc.
I went looking back through some of the other Signature Collection bonus features to see if I could gauge when they were shot versus when they were released. It's hard to tell with these things, because some bonus features have long lead times while others have shorter ones.
For example, the "Always Belle" featurette on
Beauty and the Beast was filmed right before the Super Summer Theatre's production of
Beauty and the Beast began playing.
In her Facebook Post from June 2, 2016, you can see a candid photo taken during their interview session. The press release for
Beauty and the Beast's Signature Collection would happen three weeks later, on June 24, with the actual content seeing release digitally (September 6) and on disc (September 20), giving us a three-month lead time between the press release and the disc street date, but far less lead time between the completion of that one bonus feature and the official announcement.
By comparison, "The Pinocchio Project" was listed among the bonus features for
Pinocchio: Signature Collection, which was announced November 21. One of the singers, Tanner Patrick, likely recorded his part over the summer, which we can vaguely pinpoint to anytime before August 26, as that's when he released his
YouTube video for his cover of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. He's wearing the same clothes and has the same hairstyle in both. So his contribution to "The Pinocchio Project" was done well in advance of the press release, as opposed to that brief three-week lead time for the "Always Belle" feature on
Beauty and the Beast.
Based on Jodi's Instagram, they shot the bonus feature on July 11. So if we assume it'll get edited and polished up within a few weeks (and likely before McKinley goes back to university), then we could either see an official press release shortly after (similar to
Beauty and the Beast) or not for a long while (similar to
Pinocchio). The more recent trends in Disney's press releases have shown one or two month gaps between a press release and a street date. If
The Little Mermaid is going to be the Fall 2018 Signature Collection, its press release will have to go out either next week to announce a late-August release or sometime in mid-August to announce a late-September release. The latter seems the likeliest, as it would give
The Little Mermaid a release date that wouldn't get overshadowed by the Blu-Ray releases of
Avengers: Infinity War (August 14) or
Solo (September 4). But I'd personally prefer if
The Little Mermaid not get released until its actual anniversary year, as Disney's miraculously managed to do for
Beauty and the Beast (25th),
Bambi (75th), and
Peter Pan (65th). As I theorized some pages back in here, I can see it as a 2019 entry because it would help build the momentum and anticipation for their upcoming live-action remake, which would either start or already be in production next year.
For an old-school example of the lead time between bonus features, press releases, and street date, way back in 2010 I learned about the
Beauty and the Beast supplements from Don Hahn himself during a March 16 screening of
Waking Sleeping Beauty. He told me firsthand that they shot a new documentary, would have a piece about Howard Ashman, and include more material about the non-musical Purdum version (which was only excerpted in
Waking Sleeping Beauty. He just had to look them over before final submission to Disney. Quite literally, two weeks later (March 29), Disney released the official press release for
Beauty and the Beast, including all the material he mentioned, though the disc wouldn't get released for another six months (October 5). So lead times have definitely changed between now and then.
Albert