DVDizzy Forum

This is a question that always puzzled me. I understand why it took "The Black Cauldron" so long to come out on VHS, Disney hate it. But Oliver and Company on the other hand did quite well at the box office at the time ($76 million, Little Mermaid made $84 that ain't a big difference).

I don't know whether at the time Disney were instantly putting out their newest animated movies to VHS (Basil came to VHS in about 1990/1 but Mermaid came out straight after its cinema release) so maybe they just forgot about it and got wrapped up in the big hits they were having but that still doesn't explain the 9 years it took for this film to be released.

Does anyone know a reason?

Well, I did a tad bit of research, and found out that

a) It made $74 million
b) They released it after an unusal 7 years. They did not give any reason, but the site said that they also made several hundred 35mm prints for the release...

note, this info was gotten from animated-movies.com

Well, at that point, weren't they evaulating how to bring moviegoers into theaters for their animated re-releases, with the prevalence of video in the home? So maybe they decided the way they'd get people to see it in theaters again would be denying them the pleasure of watching it on video.

That is very odd, actually. I didn't know about it.

Luke wrote:Well, at that point, weren't they evaulating how to bring moviegoers into theaters for their animated re-releases, with the prevalence of video in the home? So maybe they decided the way they'd get people to see it in theaters again would be denying them the pleasure of watching it on video.

That is very odd, actually. I didn't know about it.

This may be a right theory, since "Oliver" was rerelease in U.S. theaters in 1996.

Interesting that this could have become one of the most-watched movies of a generation the way Little Mermaid did had Disney not withheld it from home video.