Sales News For Disney October 18 SEs

[Jake Lipson]

As expected, Batman Begins was the big winner last week, but in their article about its huge success, The Hollywood Reporter also mentioned both Cinderella and the new "special editions" from that week:

Buena Vista's "Cinderella" held fast at No. 3...Several special-edition DVDs of older movies scored well on the sales front. Buena Vista's "Tarzan" debuted at No. 8 and "The Emperor's New Groove" bowed at No. 15.

This is in stark contrast to Batman Begins:

Warner Home Video's "Batman Begins" shot to No. 1 its first week out on both the preliminary national sales and rental charts. The brooding actioner, which took in nearly $205.3 million in theaters, scored a knockout punch as one of the first big summer theatricals to come to video -- and as the top-selling DVD so far this fourth quarter. Sales were so strong for "Begins" that the topper on VideoScan's First Alert chart sold more units the week ending Oct. 23 than the rest of the top 20 DVD sellers combined. Industry sources peg first-week sales at nearly 4 million copies.

There was never any chance of Disney's releases beating Batman Begins and they knew that, but I think they probably wanted these to do better nonetheless. (Maybe they would have had they been 2-disc sets as originally planned!) I'm glad to see Tarzan doing moderately well at least, if only because the movie is so wonderful and I'm glad it's available again; it should also continue to do solidly throughout the holiday season.

But I'm equally glad to see the even more pointless New Groove reissue outright failing. Admittedly, it's what I'll probably end up setteling for sooner or later because I don't have the movie yet, but it's nice to see most people hanging onto their older discs.

So, they're doing well, but not nearly as well as Disney probably hoped for. Hopefully this will teach Disney a lesson.

[Luke]

Debuting 8th and 15th when there's hardly anything new offered and in the case of <i>The Emperor's New Groove</i>, the movie was already in-print until recently, can hardly be considered "failing." If only we were all so lucky that we could repackage somethings and sell hundreds of thousands of copies...

[Jake Lipson]

Well, that's very true. Except that I'm sure Disney WANTED these two to be in the league of Cinderella, or at least the 2005 equivilant(s) to the Platinum-support-SE that was Mulan last year. And 15th is not anywhere near that, so THEY will consider it a failure, no?

[musicradio77]

"Cinderella" on DVD is not a failure. They did very well in the beginning and it's still in the top 10. "Batman Begins" is #1 on the DVD sales list. They outsold "Cinderella" DVD. Disney did a great job for putting "Cinderella" on the map. My next hope will be "Lady and the Tramp" and "The Little Mermaid". Both will be on DVD next year and "Cinderella 3" is going to be in the works right now until the DVD comes out in two years. Stay tuned.

[Jake Lipson]

I didn't say Cinderella is a failure, in fact far from it; I expect it to be one of the year's biggest sellers, definately in the top 10. I said that the new versions of Tarzan and New Groove will be considered failures by Disney because they wanted those to be the Platinum support SEs for Cinderella (like Mulan was for Aladdin last year) and they are not performing to that level.

[GOGOinVegas]

The amount of money they have been raking in for repackaging movies for us is absolutely astounding. They have been milking Cinderella for over 50 years!! Im sure we have at least 50 more. TENG should not have sold as well as it did. They market this as if they have a new movie for us... ....its all for the shareholders though....im not bitter no

[MickeyMousePal]

Well I'm glad that Tarzan was number 8 and The Emperor's New Groove is number 15 but they should have both been 2 disc.

[Disney-Fan]

I'm so happy for Begins!
LOL, I know we're talking Disney here, but hearing about Batman being so successful gets me excited!

[Prince Eric]

Yeah, I have to disagree about Tarzan and The Emperor's New Groove being failures. I'm pretty sure Disney did not expect them to be in the same league as other Platinum supported titles. First of all, they don't have the fanbase as say, Mulan. Tarzan may have done very, very well during it's theatrical, and subsequent video release, but something about it doesn't scream "memorable Disney classic!" It's also fairly recent. I'm surprised the two charted at all. Honestly, Disney shot themselves in the foot choosing these two titles as Special Edition released. Even if they had been 2-Discs, they would have faired any better. The average suburban family isn't going to be swayed by a second disk. Disney knew this too late, and decided to conserve costs and bailed on the second disk.

[Luke]

Once again, Prince Eric, I think you're letting your own personal opinions sway your assessment of the films' statures. I would say that <i>Tarzan</i> and <i>The Emperor's New Groove</i> both have larger fanbases. <i>Groove</i> became a mega-hit on video (primarily VHS), while <i>Tarzan</i>'s grosses were considerably greater than <i>Mulan</i> domestically and worldwide. It's quite possible that <i>Mulan</i> remains a more reputable title than <i>Groove</i>, but I don't see anyway you can label it a bigger hit or more popular than <i>Tarzan</i>.

[Prince Eric]

Once again, Prince Eric, I think you're letting your own personal opinions sway your assessment of the films' statures. I would say that <i>Tarzan</i> and <i>The Emperor's New Groove</i> both have larger fanbases. <i>Groove</i> became a mega-hit on video (primarily VHS), while <i>Tarzan</i>'s grosses were considerably greater than <i>Mulan</i> domestically and worldwide. It's quite possible that <i>Mulan</i> remains a more reputable title than <i>Groove</i>, but I don't see anyway you can label it a bigger hit or more popular than <i>Tarzan</i>.

If that were the case, than it would have said it in reverse. I LOVE Tarzan. No one else has come up with a logical explanation as to why Disney pulled out of the second discs.

[Luke]

If that were the case, than it would have said it in reverse. I LOVE Tarzan. No one else has come up with a logical explanation as to why Disney pulled out of the second discs.

Well, okay. Certain comments from your post ("something about it doesn't scream 'memorable Disney classic!'") sounded like you didn't think much of <i>Tarzan</i> and then suggesting that <i>Mulan</i> had a larger fanbase seemed off.

I think your line about them cutting costs is correct. They already advertised <i>Tarzan</i> as a 2-disc set, so people have no reason to think something would changed unless they keep their eye on a site like this. If they don't, perhaps they're not that into DVDs and don't even know there was a previous DVD release let alone a fine 2-disc set. The difference in cost may have only been a fraction of a dollar, but shaving that much off hundreds of thousands of copies is significant. Promotion seemed pretty minor on each, especially <i>New Groove</i>. Plus, judging from all the posts around here, plenty of diehard collectors seem more concerned by the presence or absence of a slipcover than about the making-of material that actually is on the disc. After all, how many duplicate threads on individual bonus features have had to be locked or merged? How many on slipcovers?