It took 108 years for the story to unfold in real life.
But only a little more than a month for the Cubs World Series championship to make it to home video.
After the world premiere of “The 2016 World Series” last week at the Civic Opera House, Shout!Factory is releasing the official 97-minute film on Blu-ray and DVD ($26.99-$34.99) Tuesday. The documentary-style highlights movie was culled from hundreds of hours of footage from the 2016 season and post-season. Narrated by Chicago actor and Cubs fan Vince Vaughn, the movie includes game highlights, interviews with players, coaches, team executives and others and excerpts from the World Series victory parade and celebration.
And even more Cubs news on the home-video front: On Dec. 13, Cubs fans can relive every minute of every World Series game with the release of the “2016 World Series Collector’s Edition: Chicago Cubs,” an eight-disc DVD ($59.99) or Blu-ray set ($79.99) featuring all seven games, uncut (a total of 20 hours of video). Bonus materials include game trivia and a separate disc of the NLCS Game 6 at Wrigley Field.
Making the World Series movie “pretty much starts when the Series starts,” said Jed Tuminaro, the MLB Productions director of the “2016 World Series” film, who has helmed numerous Fall Classic films over the years. “This year was a very different experience for us. We really got started on the workout day, Oct. 24, and we wrapped up around Nov. 12, just 10 days after the final out.”
Crews of cameramen, producers and editors worked 18-hour days “pretty much every day” for weeks to complete the project. Interviews were conducted throughout the Series in Chicago and Cleveland.
“We did a handful of interviews each day,” Tuminaro said, “and those are geared toward the main participants. … Early on, we were focusing mainly on Cleveland because they were up in the Series, and generally that’s how the filming tends to go. So we were talking to the Cleveland players when they were up three games, so there is a heavy Indian presence in the film. Nobody was ready for what eventually unfolded. … Nothing was like this World Series film project for us. The scope of this transcended baseball.”
With the Series unfolding as it did, Tuminaro’s film crews, production assistants, video/digital loggers and other technical teams were racing against time and logistics to connect with Cubs players.
“These guys just scattered to the four winds,” Tuminaro said with a laugh. “Some of them went to [‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’], some went to [‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’]. They went to ‘SNL.’ The morning new shows. They were everywhere! It was so different from other years because in most Series you can pretty much key in on one or two main players that you have to get to and it’s pretty easy. Because Game 7 was so epic, there wasn’t any ONE storyline. We had so many people to get to. And we did.”
Asked for his greatest revelation about the 2016 Cubs from working on this project, Tuminaro said: “They are a young team, but what stood out for me from years past was that as a team they just did not let all the pressure — from the media, from the fans — get to them. If anything, it’s clearly apparent they were totally embracing what they needed to do. … I think it really comes across in the film when you see the footage from the team coming out onto the field after that rain delay was over. You’d think they’d be shellshocked, but then you see their faces and it’s just one of [let’s do this!]. To see the incredible exuberance on the faces of Zobrist and Rizzo. We can do [these films] for another 30 years and it will never be like this again.”
As Anthony Rizzo sums it up in the film, “It was our time.”
