Michael Corvin

Just saw a trailer for the Shrek 2 DVD last night. Just realized that it comes out the same day as the Incredibles. Trying to steal someone's thunder SKG? I have no doubt in my mind. Market the biggest movie of the year and pit it against Disney/Pixar's latest.

How many DVDs are ever released on Fridays? I can only remember 2. Spiderman and the original Shrek.

And I thought it was bad WB was holding back on the Iron Giant to try and get more sales while the Incredibles was in theaters.

Anyone's thoughts?

Jay G.

Fast and the Furious was also released on a Friday.

Considering that Dreamworks pulled this same trick back in 2001, releasing the Shrek DVD on the same Friday that Pixar's Monsters, Inc. came out, it does seem a lot like Pixar envy.

The problem was, the plan largely backfired last time. Monsters, Inc. opened to bigger numbers than Shrek, while consumers were largely confused when the Shrek DVD didn't come out on Tuesday. Most stores had it in the ad for that week, so it was only adverstised and on sale for effectively 2 days, unlike the 5 days for Tuesday releases. So I'm surprised that they're trying to do it again.

PixyJunket

How sad.

fumanstan

Doesn't matter to me. I couldn't care less when its released. Heck, if its out on Friday versus the following Tuesday, great. Going to buy Shrek 2 and watch the Incredibles regardless of their release dates.

Jackskeleton

It's an old trick. Happened with Monster Inc also I believe.

PopcornTreeCt

I don't see it as a scheme. Buying a DVD and going to see a movie at the theatre are 2 very, very different events.

Get Me Coffee

Yup not the first time this has happened.

Michael Corvin

Not really. Dreamworks is vying for that almighty dollar. Sure there are a lot of people on this forum that will drop $15 bones on Shrek then head off to the Incredibles and spend another $15+ dollars for two(or food), but most families won't in the same week.

I didn't know about the Monsters, Inc. thing. That is funny. I guess we will see how it goes in a couple of weeks.

calhoun07

Do you blame them? For years people cry about how "Di$ney" is so evil and blah blah blah and now a studio comes along that has a real chance at upsetting Disney's stronghold on family animation. Other studios have tried and failed, with Fox closing their doors on animation and WB's animated movies are a joke and a half as far as success goes (though I think Iron Giant was a great classic movie, WB failed to market it properly and it failed in the process). Perhaps if Fox or WB had more tenacity they wouldn't have lost their best talent to other studios. Brad Bird, director of Iron Giant, could have just as easilly made the Incredibles for WB, but WB screwed the pooch with Iron Giant, so why would he stay with them? I am sure there is more to it than that, but the bottom line is that it's going to take a studio who is daring and willing to have the balls to go up against the Mouse. SKG has those balls and are willing to do all they can to get the attention they deserve, attention Fox and WB deserved for their animated movies, but failed to generate because they played soft ball. SKG is playing hardball and all the better for them.

Jay G.

The bottom line is that nobody has to "take out" Disney in order to be successful in animation. This isn't Highlander, it's not like "there can be only one" when it comes to successful animated films, as Dreamworks, and Blue Sky over at Fox, have shown.

Dreamworks isn't doing this to maximize profits, they're doing this to try and deliberately hurt the profits of another film. It's the difference between two stores involved in price competetion and Walmart deliberately selling everything under cost at a store until all the local stores go bankrupt. Both are forms of competition, but one form is dirty pool. If Disney had done this, releasing say Finding Nemo on DVD the same day Shrek 2 was release to theatres, I'm sure you'd be screaming bloody murder.

jeffkjoe

Disney DID do this.

When I was at Blue Sky making Ice Age,

DISNEY re-released The Little Mermaid, of all things, a 12 year-old movie that already had a theatrical release and a video run, on the EXACT same day as our movie.

Groucho

Oh my god. Last time I checked we live in a capitalist society. If you don't like businesses competing, I hear Cuba has a very open immigration policy.

I believe the DVD for the first Shrek was also released on a Friday (against Monsters Inc), and remarkably the Pixar film did just fine.

fumanstan

I'm not sure, but has anyone mentioned that they did it with Shrek and Monster's Inc. yet?

resinrats

I just don't thing that many people will buy Shrek and then decide not to see Incredibles since they already paid $15 that day. If they really wanted to see Incredibles and the purchase of the DVD makes them rethink things, they probably can't afford to go see Incredibles or buy Shrek to begin with.

I also agree that realeasing it on Friday will hurt Shrek's numbers since the sale on it will last only 2 days. They should release it on Tuesday and just do a marking push on Thursday/Friday.

Michael Corvin

Don't get your panties in a wad. It is just something to discuss. I just find it unusual that these companies are so die hard about taking each other out, over animation, when they can all be successful like Jay said.

Groucho

I DON'T WEAR PANTIES ON WEEKDAYS

RevLiver

Freeballing?

calhoun07

First off, you quoted my thread and used the words "take out." No where did I suggest Dreamworks was trying to take out Disney. Nobody wants that, I would hope. What I am saying is I applaud their efforts to market and generate attention to their product, even if it means going right up toe to toe and nose to nose with the Mouse Co. If other studios had the balls to do this, perhaps their animation divisions would have been open and their highly talented creators and directors would be making movies now to make both Disney and Dreamworks work up a sweat in worry. But other studios back down and play the nice road and they fail and die at the box office. Criticize them for all you want, but Dreamworks is still getting you talking about their movies, good or bad.

And you think Dreamworks isn't interested in maximizing profits? I thought Groucho had some good one liners!

Hokeyboy

I know where my $$$ will be going.

But this nothing new: Dreamworks did the same before, by releasing the Shrek DVD on the day Monsters Inc opened in theaters.

Troy Stiffler

I WILL BE BOYCOTTING SHREK 2. But not because of it's marketing scheme, but because THE ORIGINAL MOVIE BLOWS. Hehehe. A bad movie is a bad movie.

The release date idea is going to help Dreamworks more than it hurts Pixar. Regardless of Shrek 2, The Incredibles is still going to have sold-out shows, all day long, all week long. But I think that having both on the same release date sort of keeps kids movies fresh in the minds of parents.

I'll be seeing The Incredibles in the first week or two.

Jay G.

You sure about that? I can't find any VHS release that comes close to Ice Age, and the only DVD release came out on Dec 7, 1999, over a year before your film.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/
http://www.ultimatedisney.com/littlemermaid.html

Jay G.

When I put "take out" in quotes I wasn't directly quoting you, but paraphrasing what I thought the tone of your message was. My apologies if I was off-base. There are, however, people who at least in print claim that they'd like to see Disney fail, and view it as an evil empire. Given Dreamwork's mocking of Disney in the first Shrek, it seems there might even be a few of that mindset working at Dreamworks.
If Dreamworks had truely wanted to go toe to toe with Disney, they would've kept Shark Tale on its original release date of Nov 5, same as The Incredibles, instead of bumping it up a month early.
http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=2272

Quote:

If other studios had the balls to do this, perhaps their animation divisions would have been open and their highly talented creators and directors would be making movies now to make both Disney and Dreamworks work up a sweat in worry.

I don't get this, you think that the reason other studio's animated films failed is because they didn't release them on the excact same day as a Disney release? Movie studios move films release dates away from bigger, higher profile films all the time. The smart thing to do is to get a film a far away from a bigger film so that it isn't lost. Dreamworks knows this, which is why they move Shark Tale. They're just being petty with Shrek 2, since they know the DVD will sell well and are willing to take a drop in initial sales to try and affect the Friday boxoffice.
I'm 100% serious. I work in retail, and releasing such a high profile release on a Friday is going to hurt its initial sales. The release date is going to confuse and inconvenience a lot of people. Those who know new releases come out on Tuesdays are going to try and get it then and fail. And those oblivious of release dates are going to wonder why a video is in Sunday's ad if it doesn't come out until Friday.

And you know those low prices on DVDs for their first week of release? Instead of having stores selling this DVD below cost for 5 days as a loss leader, Shrek 2 will only have a low price for 2 days. The same applies for cross promotions and coupons as well.

The first Shrek DVD, while it sold well, did not sell near as well as expected, due to many of the problems above.

jeffkjoe

I'm sure.

Disney re-released The Little Mermaid THEATRICALLY around the same date as Ice Age's THEATRICAL date. March of 2001. I'm not talking about the VHS release date.

Was there any good reason for Disney to do this? Nope. It wasn't an anniversary release. There weren't any new "special songs" or "special scenes" added.

But, all the power to them. If that was their marketing strategy, so be it.


...And all this was BEFORE Shrek.

Jay G.

That release date doesn't show up on IMDB's database:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097757/releaseinfo
Nor does any date in March 2002, which is when Ice Age was actually released in theaters.

Shrek was released on May 18, 2001. It came out on DVD on November 2, 2001, 4 months before Ice Age was released to theatres on March 12, 2002

Hokeyboy

Jeff, your dates are off.

Disney re-released The Little Mermaid theatrical on the same day-and-date of Fox's heavily-marketed debut of Anastasia. This was, I believe, in November of 1997, and widely viewed as a crass and obnoxious move on Disney's part to stifle animation breakouts from any and all challengers.

It really didn't help that Anastasia was, for all intents and purposes, a Disney clone under another name, and an average movie to boot. Still, it cleared something like $50-60 million while Mermaid stalled around $25 or so.