According to The Hollywood Reporter 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment will announce at the San Diego Comic-Con that the first original Futurama production since the series was canceled in 2003 will be a feature-length film, Futurama: Bender's Big Score that will go directly to DVD and be available on November 27th. The new film features the show's original cast and crew, and its release will mark the second time that a Fox cartoon series has spawned a direct-to-DVD film after cancellation (Family Guy: Stewie, the Untold Story was the first).

 

Fox plans to release three additional Futurama direct-to-DVD features during 2008, Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs, Futurama: Bender's Game, and Futurama: Into the Wild, Green Yonder.  In addition to the original cast each Futurama film will feature guest stars.  Al Gore, Sarah Silverman and Coolio appear in Bender's Big Score.

 

The release of the direct-to-DVD features doesn't really affect the previously announced plans to revive Futurama in episodic form on Comedy Central in 2008 (see 'Futurama Revived').  The producers of the series plan on chopping up the features, adding new material and airing the resulting reconfigured new 22-minute episodes on Comedy Central during 2008 along with reruns of the original 72 episodes.

 

The reappearance of Futurama is good news for retailers with new Futurama figures coming from Toynami and the excellent on-going Futurama comics and graphic novel collections from Bongo Comics.