DATELINE -- Thursday, 11 November 1999
![[Disney DVD]](../newsimgs/disneydvd.gif)
Disney to release all animated titles!: As we first predicted last Friday on this very website, Walt Disney Studios and their home-video division Buena Vista have completely thrown out their previous one-toe-in-the-water DVD marketing strategy and fully embraced the digital format, albeit with a few traditional Disney reservations. Key points of the new strategy, announced yesterday by Disney Chairman Joe Roth, include:
- All future DVDs from Disney/Buena Vista will be released day-and-date with VHS editions.
- A "Platinum Collection," comprising ten of Disney's most-popular animation features, will begin arriving on DVD and VHS in 2001 with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Each additional Platinum title will arrive every fall after that (Platinum titles include Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Bambi, The Jungle Book, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Lady and the Tramp, and 101 Dalmatians). These releases will only be available for a limited time, and will re-appear in 10-year cycles thereafter.
- Disney's remaining 26 classic animation titles will be released on DVD over the next two years, and without moratorium dates. Using the Platinum Collection list as a reference, here's a few we can expect: Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo, Robin Hood, and The Aristocats. The overall amount of titles indicates that Disney will release at least one animated DVD per month for the next two years, although it's possible they will arrive in waves of three every quarter.
Why the change of heart in the Mouse House? First, the growth of the DVD market has been undeniable, and even the mighty Disney can no longer disregard the future of home video. Secondly, due to some recent profit slumps (the last 3Q was especially disappointing), Disney has taken steps over the past year to simplify their multi-national megacorp, including selling off many of their print-publication holdings, merging their television-production division with the Mouse-owned ABC network, and putting their animation and special-effects units under one roof. Top Mouse Michael Eisner is determined to return The Magic Kingdom to the 20% profit margins it has enjoyed in previous years (shareholders expect nothing less), and a key part of the Disney reorganization involves finding ways to profit from, as Eisner called it last week, "entertainment experiences that are already on the ground," i.e., popular home-video titles that can be repackaged and re-marketed with little overhead.
We say great. Although some people are bound to feel a little irked by the "Platinum Collection" and its ten-year cycle, it should be noted that this policy is in place for both VHS and DVD -- there is no distinction between the two. Some of you may have been hoping that the Mouse would abandon their well-known moratoriums altogether, but we never expected anything of the sort. The fact remains that Disney has now brought their DVD releases completely in line with their VHS editions, meaning that there is now only one cross-format home-video strategy. And that's progress.
Notably: Those of you reading closely certainly noticed similarities and differences between Disney's "Platinum Collection" and the current crop of Disney DVD releases, namely that many of the current titles are not on the ten-year list -- in particular Pinocchio, Hercules, Mulan, Peter Pan, and The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Therefore, it doesn't appear that these five discs will go on moratorium for 7-10 years, as previously announced, but will re-appear within the next two years, and for good. The only 1999 discs that are also in the Platinum Collection are 101 Dalmatians, Lady and the Tramp, The Jungle Book, and The Little Mermaid, and it's a safe bet that those four will probably return no sooner than 2005. Therefore, if you can only buy a few Disney DVDs right now, those are the ones to get.
Left unsaid: Here's a word we were hoping to hear from Disney yesterday: anamorphic. We didn't.