Q. Where can I buy it?

A. I recommend Screen Archives because I buy 95% of my soundtracks through them and I've never had any problems. Their ratings on Amazon and Ebay are extremely high.
The main shop: www.screenarchives.com
They offer the full catalogue at Amazon and at Ebay

Also available from these on-line stores:

Intrada

Buysoundrax

Q. What are the shipping costs?

A. Find out here.

Q. Can I buy it in a store?

A. Yes, but you might have to order it in, and that might take weeks. If you're in the U.K./Europe, try Movie Boulevard or Movie Grooves FYI, Movie Boulevard are selling it for £89.99 plus shipping.

Q. I live in the U.K. and I don't want to be hit with a big tax bill. Please advise?

A. Screen Archives are customs friendly. However, customs officers do randomly check packages no matter what the mark-up is. English customs are notorious. It's absolutely ridiculous that English customers are forced to pay 17.5% tax and an additional administration fee on items over the value of £18.00.

Q. Is it limited to 3000 units?

A. The Superman set is limited to an initial run of 3000 units. Because all of the music was recorded in Europe (and the Ron Jones material was a non-union session), FSM is not limited in how many they are allowed to make within the terms of their license. However, the sets are very expensive to produce so the decision to do a second run will be based on how well the first one does. But even if it happens it might not be right away.

Q. If there is another pressing, will they include the 160 page book?

A. It's too early to say what FSM plan to do. They may elect to re-release the CDs with standard liner notes, but this is speculative on my part. I guess it depends on how quickly they sell the inventory.
This what Lukas had to say on 24th Feb: "Our manufacturing costs on this are extremely high and we are confabbing soon to figure out if there will be a second edition and in what form. I will say that the sales are faster than (ahem) a speeding bullet and even if we go ahead with a second edition it's possible that there would be a gap of unavailability of some weeks or maybe months."

Q. Why does is it cost 120 dollars?

A. Unfortunately, FSM is a small label and caters for a niche market. This box-set was very expensive to produce. They have to recoup their costs otherwise they won't survive. The way I look at it is this: It doesn't matter if it is 2 dollars or 200 dollars, if you don't use it then it's a waste of money. This box-set will provide many years and, perhaps, generations of listening entertainment. BTW, do you want the Underhill's credit card number? ;)

Q. I have the Rhino discs; I don't want to buy Superman yet again! Can they release the soundtracks separately?

A. The terms of their license with Warner Bros. only allows them to release the music in a box-set. Superman The Movie sounds superior to the Rhino release because the producers had access to the 6 track, which was used for the 2001 DVD release. The other scores are exceptional too, not just musically but sonically as well. It's your money, your choice.

Q. When will it ship?

A. Orders are now shipping.

Q. Why weren't scores for Superman Returns, Superboy and Superman: The Animated Series (Shirley Walker) included?

A. Mike Matessino: We started the project BEFORE Superman Returns came out and the licensing deal was already locked. As a brand new release there was no way we could have even discussed the possibility of doing anything with it, and as has been pointed out the union fees for something brand new would have been prohibitively expensive. The other thing that Superman fans may not realize is that our release is FSM's second box set. The first was "The Elmer Bernstein Film Collection," which had the same physical design but is 12 discs instead of 8. In trying to create a product line FSM wanted to follow the same design format, so when we started and realized we needed seven discs to present the four films, Lukas Kendall asked me if I had any ideas for an eighth disc in order to fill up the second clamshell case. A lot of ideas were thrown around Superboy, Supergirl, Smallville, the Shirley Walker scores, etc. but they were either too expensive and/or problematic to make happen.

Finally I remembered the Ruby-Spears cartoon and logistically we hit the jackpot: It used the Williams theme, Lukas was friends with Ron Jones, who had the masters, and the recording was done non-union. The fact that it was done in 1988 was another stroke of luck. Had it not been we'd have left the years off the title, but since it was it gave us a catchy way of identifying the contents to the fans, because just "Superman: The Music" wouldn't have been very clear. The Jones music is really cool. As Lukas said it's very high quality for a Saturday morning cartoon and very much in the same mode as his Star Trek: The Next Generation music, much of which has not been released. Ron is also a great guy and FSM is all about getting scores out there that would otherwise not see the light of day.