Last December 28, Spanish home entertainment site ZonaDVD published a news post announcing a Blu-ray release of the '
Back to the Future Trilogy' for July 2010, backing up that claim with a very professionally-produced trade ad. Several international sites have run with the story, forcing ZonaDVD to issue a note explicitly admitting that it was the local equivalent of an April Fools' joke. However, now Universal sources are allegedly confirming that the title will indeed come out this year.
Here is an English translation of ZonaDVD's note:
What began as a joke is now becoming reality. As if this was a Twilight Zone episode, news from USA confirms the Blu-ray launch of Back to the Future on Blu-ray, based on our phony leaflet.
First things first:
The joke was built on some basis of reality, because as many will know, Back to the Future has been rumored to be coming up to Blu-ray for a while. That's why we elaborately made a fake trade ad that was believable. We made up the number of discs, the cover picture, etc., and as an ultimate joke, we added a preposterous short film with the lovable Jaws 19 (which was Zemeckis' joke for Spielberg in BTTF II), but in 3-D, in keeping with the current fad.
Obviously, many of you realized that this was a joke the minute you saw that short film mentioned, even though others totally fell for it (which was the whole point).
It now happens that, through none other than The Digital Bits' Bill Hunt, there is confirmation [Rumor Mill, January 5] that the Back to the Future Trilogy will indeed come out on Blu-ray in 2010. Sources from Universal in the USA have assured him that it will finally come out this year.
What's really surprising for us is that he's also got confirmation from Universal that the trade ad is genuine – which is completely impossible, as it had been completely made up by our editorial team. Even Bill Hunt himself remarks (even knowing that this is a Día de los Inocentes joke), that after so many years and experience in the medium, he can assure that it's "the real deal".
Anyway, we're satisfied to see how our joke has fooled even the biggest veterans in the profession and, obviously, we're most happy to see it made Universal USA go ahead and confirm definitely that Back to the Future will come out this year, something that all are looking forward to – even at ZonaDVD.
Then again, if the fake 3-D short from our joke ends up being included, we'll have to pick up our jaws from the floor.