A New Disney Revenue Stream?

The biggest, most critically acclaimed release this past weekend was Drive starring Ryan Gosling. Drive was great, and will be reviewed later for this blog, but it did not interest the general movie going public as much as I think it should have. In fact it finished 3^rd this weekend at the box office with $11 million, not exactly the next or Transformers movie clearly (ie its actually a quality film).  Instead 2 movies surpassed it, in 2^nd place was Contagion, last week’s #1 film.  Which begs the question, if Drive was the biggest new film being released over the weekend, and last week’s #1 film didn’t repeat as the #1 this week, what took in the most money over the weekend?

The Lion King... in 3-D.

The Lion King was rereleased in 3-D, having been converted at some point in the last year or two, I’m assuming this because I doubt they redrew the thing and shot it with 3-D cameras. Originally released in June 1994, it has made an indelible mark in many of our lives, becoming an instant classic film as well as part of the soundtrack to many an afterparty. Disney must’ve known both these facts as they chose to release this movie in 3-D first, presumably to test the waters for releases of other classic films in 3-D as well.

Normally, I would be inclined to say that this is just a classic case of a movie studio looking for a new way to make money.  Unfortunately, I love Disney, so I don’t feel that way.  I’ve always disliked the “Disney Vault” where great movies are “stored” until round number anniversaries of their releases come around and then they are sold, generally when I don’t care to buy them.  Releasing them again in hopefully well converted 3-D is a whole other story.  I think its great a new generation of kids will get to see these classics, as well as giving me the opportunity to view it as well. Personally I almost went and double-featured Drive with the Lion King, but then realized I didn’t have any 3-D glasses (I’m going to have to start bringing a pair with me for just these occasions).

So while I could deride Disney for doing money grabs like a 2 week release of the Lion King, I can’t because I think they should do it with all their films. I’m selfish and don’t remember seeing some of these on the big screen, and have only seen other classic movies on tv.

Matt Brickell is a contributing writer and hopes Sword and the Stone or Beauty and the Beast is the next to be released in 3-D.