SPECIAL 25th ANNIVERSARY DVD OF THE LAST UNICORN, WITH EXTRA FEATURES (BUY IT HERE, OR PETER S. BEAGLE GETS NOTHING)

Price $15.00 unautographed, or $25 signed in three places (disc, cover art, and slipcase). Available now.

In April 2004 Lionsgate Entertainment released The Last Unicorn on DVD for the first time in the United States...and it was terrible, just terrible. Produced from poor-quality masters, this fullscreen version cut off both sides of the original image, looked blurry and dark, sounded screechy and awful, contained no extras, and featured cover art that looked like My Little Pony on jelly-bean steroids.

To say that fans of the film were disappointed would be an understatement. Yet with no other version available, they still bought it in droves, purchasing at least 500,000 copies before it was finally replaced last year with something much, much better. (That's the new version, just to the left.)

The new version happened because of us. The minute the first terrible edition appeared, we started lobbying Lionsgate to do something about it.

The first response we got was that the company that actually owned the film — Granada Media, in London — had assured Lionsgate they already had the very best masters available. We knew this wasn't true, of course, so we kept pushing to show them the beautiful German edition, which had been digitally remastered and cleaned-up specially by the German distributor because The Last Unicorn is such a treasured film in that country.

We finally got a chance to do that in 2006, in a meeting in Lionsgate's Santa Monica offices. To the company's credit, once they saw the difference for themselves they didn't waste any time. They licensed the German video masters and 5.1 audio mix, licensed the English cover art, worked with us to assemble some nifty extras (including a video interview with Peter S. Beagle, and a gallery of Last Unicorn art), seized on our marketing suggestion that 2007 was the 25th anniversary of the film's first release...and on February 6th last year released a new widescreen DVD anniversary edition that finally did the movie justice.

It has been a terrific success. In the first year alone Lionsgate has sold 300,000 copies, making the 25th Anniversary Last Unicorn the second-best-selling "catalog special" DVD of 2007. (The only film to beat it? Spiderman 2.1!)

Peter is pleased and delighted, as are we. But we're even more pleased that slightly over 4,000 of those new DVDs were sold through us, in a special arrangement with Lionsgate.

Here's a shot of a slightly-bleary Peter working his way through signing the first flood of orders that came in:

SO EVERYTHING IS GREAT, RIGHT? NOPE... NOT AT ALL.

Except for the copies that were purchased through Conlan Press via this website, or at Peter's sales table at various conventions, none of the other Last Unicorn DVDs have ever paid him a cent. That's right — nearly 1.3 million DVDs have been sold around the world since 1999, and only the 4,000 copies that we moved have earned him any money. From the rest...from all those copies purchased at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Borders, Target, Best Buy, Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, your local outlet of any size...you name it, Peter has gotten absolutely nothing, despite the fact that by contract Granada Media owes him huge sums.

Now, thanks to pressure from Peter's fans (see here and here for more detail) Granada is finally negotiating. Kind of. But we're a long way from settled, so we hope that until then you will spread the word that the very best way to buy The Last Unicorn on DVD is right here, where more than half of every sale goes straight into Peter's pocket (and the other half helps pay the lawyer who is fighting for Peter's rights).

Our very deep thanks to Lionsgate Entertainment for making this possible. Great folks, and a great company.

Yes, I would like to get The Last Unicorn 25th Anniversary widescreen DVD.