What do you think of this decision by disney???

[Bob O]

The movie "Signs" is being released on Jan 7,2003
What do you think of the decision of releasing it then rather than trying to relaes it beofe x-mas where sales could have been made as x-mas gifts!!
Do you think it should haveeen released earlier so as to hopefully gain sales at x-mas time or is it better to release the movie after the holidays??

 

[ArcticWildMan]

LOTR is commanding almost all the box office attention right now. I imagine new releases will do a lot better after the new year when the LOTR fever has subsided somewhat.

 

[roymccoy]

NO, Bob is saying that Signs is being released AFTER X-mas on DVD, not in the theaters. I don't really understand their rational behind doing that. It seems kind of a waste to not have them available for X-mas. I know that Spiderman and Men in Black II and Ice Age are doing GANGBUSTERS at the stores right now. Seems kind of stupid to miss that.

Roy

 

[ArcticWildMan]

Oops!! Sorry..my mistake. Never saw the movie to begin with so I thought it was a new release coming out.

 

[Dcourt3]

For some reason, a number of DVDs that would have sold well over the holidays were delayed until January7, including Signs, Buffy the vampire Slayer (season 3) and the Shield. There was an article in the Boston Globe stating that it is a new theory in the industry, trying to get the post-holiday sales.

To me, it seems really foolish.

 

[MHopkins2]

Re Buffy, FWIW they did the exact same thing (to the day - January 15th) with the Season One box set. (Season Two was June 15th. Yes, I'm a Buffy addict, and completely unwilling to enter rehab, thanks.) There was some speculation on the Season Three date, because the insert in the S2 box just said "coming this Winter" - all us addicts were hoping that they were only keeping their options open in case they couldn't have it ready in time for the holiday gift rush, but it looks like this really is an on-purpose strategy. Doesn't make much sense to me either, but what do I know?

 

[Luv2Roam]

I think January is when they normally release hits on DVD/VHS. They need it to build up sluggish after holiday sales.
My understanding is that L&S was scheduled to be released in January, but as a perk to guests (and Disney's holiday sales) they moved the release to early December.

 

[Bob O]

I think its idiotic to release the movie on Jan 7. If they want the after x-mas rush then release it right after x-mas but not 10 days later.
And i cant think of any major selling dvd's that were released in january. At that time alot of money has been spent and consumers have less cash.

 

[slam_mjg]

I frequently get money or gift cards for Christmas. I'm sure I'm not the only person shopping after the new year. January 7th will probably be about the time that I'm looking for something new to buy.

There've been a lot of DVDs coming out in the past month ("Minority Report", "Lilo & Stitch"). I've also seen a lot of advertising for DVDs that are going out of print at the end of the year ("Beauty and the Beast", "E.T."). Seems like there have already been a lot of new DVDs promoted for the holiday season, "Signs" would've had a lot of competition for holiday shoppers.

In my opinion Disney made a wise decision to release "Signs" at a time when there is less competition. I don't think "Signs" is as well known of a movie as those others (ArcticWildMan, for instance, thought it was a new theatrical release).

 

[Crazy Hakim]

Originally posted by slam_mjg
<snip>There've been a lot of DVDs coming out in the past month ("Minority Report", "Lilo & Stitch"). I've also seen a lot of advertising for DVDs that are going out of print at the end of the year ("Beauty and the Beast", "E.T."). Seems like there have already been a lot of new DVDs promoted for the holiday season, "Signs" would've had a lot of competition for holiday shoppers.In my opinion Disney made a wise decision to release "Signs" at a time when there is less competition. I don't think "Signs" is as well known of a movie as those others<snip>.

I agree. I don't think "Signs" would have been on too many Christmas Lists! I would think Lilo, Spiderman, Attack of the Clones, and a few others are more the Holiday Fare.
I also agree with the post Christmas Sales and exchanges. For example "xXx" (although not a Oscar caliber movie) is being released on 12/31, this will sell big numbers for the teen group, the Fast and Furious and Vin Deisel Fans.

Time will tell, of course.

Happy Holidays!

 

[Bob O]

Signs was one of the top grossing movies of the summer season and would have been on alot of people's x-mas lists, it would have been on mine!!!!
But with the release date alot of people will have spent their after x-mas money before Jan 7,2003, escpecially with all the after x-mas sales soon to come!!! Or have people forgotten the movie did much better than lilo at the box office???
So where are all the top selling dvds that are realesed in early to mid January.
Maybe lotr/star wars/spiderman should have been released if the logic holds that Jan is such a great time to release a movie??

 

[Another Voice]

No one really has figured out the DVD market yet because it’s still fairly new. A lot of what the studios do is based on guesswork and assumptions. It will take years before things are really figured out.

The general feeling is that people are somewhat reluctant to give movies as gifts because it’s very hard to judge which movie another person will like (just read the ‘Gangs of New York’ thread). The only exceptions seem to be kid’s movie (because kids like anything) and super-giant-mega hits that everyone is assumed to like. Therefore the DVD trend is get those movies out before the holidays: ‘Monsters, Inc’, ‘LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring’, ‘Spider-man’, etc.

The studios also know that a lot of DVD players are given as gifts and that gift certificates are growing in popularity. The catch here is to get all the popular narrow-market titles out in time for these people to hit the stores. It’s also important that these title be on the “New Release” shelves has people walk into the stores since it’s been proven that shelf placement is a huge influence. Thus you get movies like ‘xXx’ (young adult action) and ‘Signs’ (adult suspense) timed for the second wave of buyers.

There are also a lot of corporate games that happen as well. This year Disney was counting on big sales of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Monsters, Inc.’ to pull it through the holiday season. Except the pre-orders for ‘Beauty’ were well below expectations and Disney has to split the money on ‘Monsters’. So Disney moved ‘Lilo’ – which corporate had especially low expectations for and was positioned for the post-holiday bump – was moved up to help Disney with its Q1 numbers. We’ll see in a couple weeks if it worked.

 

[Bob O]

Maybe my family and others arent the norm but i received 5 dvd' for x-mas and alot of my family/friends also received several as gifts. Dont people make out x-mas lists anymore or talkt o their friends/family and are aware of what they liked or didnt like???

 

[MaryJ]

I don't think "Signs" would have been on too many Christmas Lists!

It would have been on mine, too! I didn't get to see it when it was in the theaters, and actually remember hoping that it would be out on DVD in time for me to put it on my list.

 

[KMovies]

It's a simple decision:

Disney spread out its releases ... like any other company would.

That is why Signs is being released in January. It was still in full price theatres until mid November. Didn't want to cut that money off early. The movie came out in August and played well into November.

If it had come out earlier, you would have cut that money off early - especially the money from the discount theatres that played it in November and December. Plus you wouldn't have money coming in January.

You can't release all of your films for Christmas or the rest of the year will be really, really slow. In the past, the Disney summer films came out about February 1. But Lilo was moved up for the Christmas sales.

 

[Bob O]

Most of the big summer films have already been released by now, so i guess those companies were just wrong to release star wars/spiderman/minority report etc. I guess they also should have just waited, or maybe they were smarter in the planned release schedule of there movies.

 

[Tinksman]

I have to agree with a few of the earlier posts.
There are a few valid reasons for the Jan release date.
1) Disney Home Video ( Buena Vista, Touchstone, etc) all share a marketing budget and plan... Lilo and Stitch was the Holiday release - splitting the advertising between 2 movies with different target markets would be far less effective.
2) This year was the year of the DVD PLAYER as a gift ( most stores featuring them for around $50 ) - the DVD's come right after. Did anyone notice the Best Buy ad for the 26th - it was very heavy on the DVD's - buy 2 for $25, etc - why? Because half the world that didn't yet have a DVD player opened one the day before under the tree.
3) Post production takes time... programming all of the xtra features, featurettes, games, translations, director commentary, and Disney has only limited resources to put all of this together - Attack of the Clones and Spiderman were out in theatres well before Signs, I believe - giving them a head start on the DVD extra's - plus they were working on the ( now rumored to be scrapped ) Lilo & Stitch Special Edition

 

[WDSearcher]

Originally posted by Bob O
Signs was one of the top grossing movies of the summer season and would have been on alot of people's x-mas lists, it would have been on mine!!!!
But with the release date alot of people will have spent their after x-mas money before Jan 7,2003, escpecially with all the after x-mas sales soon to come!!! Or have people forgotten the movie did much better than lilo at the box office???
So where are all the top selling dvds that are realesed in early to mid January.
Maybe lotr/star wars/spiderman should have been released if the logic holds that Jan is such a great time to release a movie??

Actually, though, the bottom line is ... will you NOT buy the DVD simply because it was released in January instead of December? You said that you'd have put it on your Christmas list, and I can appreciate that, but you could have also asked for a gift card so that you coud purchase the DVD after the holidays. But even without the gift card, if you liked the film, you're going to purchase the DVD, regardless of when it's released. And whether it sells a million units in the first weekend or a million units in the first month ... who cares? It's still a million units.

I understand that you think it was a bad decision by Disney to release it later, but I agree with the folks who have said that it's not really a "Christmas title," and that it will do just as well after the holidays as it would have beforehand. Lilo & Stitch was a much more logical pre-Christmas release, on all accounts. Just because a movie made more at the box office doesn't automatically mean that it's a better holiday release. One could also argue that since Signs did so well at the box office, it can more than hold it's own with a January sales date. Lilo, having done less business, needed the bump of holiday impulse buying to up it's video and DVD numbers.

 

[Jakey]

Another reason for DVD and Video releases being delayed is merely contractural obligations. Many movies have in their contracts a clause which says they can only be released on DVD, etc. x-number of weeks after the opening day at the box office.

It is therefore possible that "Signs" could not have received a 2002 release on DVD.

We video retailers often complain to studio reps about releasing say a horror movie, such as "Halloween: Resurrection" which came out in November instead of October before Halloween, only to be told that it was the first date they could release it under a mandatory waiting period in the contract.

 

[Bob O]

Post production now for dvd's are being done at the same time the movie is being filmed and made ready for release. Movie companies now make extra's for the dvd at the saame time the movie is made because they know extra's help sell dvd's.
As for sales, with all of the sales going on now at Best Buy ect and with gift cards in hand it makes that much more sense to have the dvd ready for sale rather than wait a couple of weeks after people have spent their gift cards at sales.
I will buy the dvd no matter when it is released but at x-mas time alot more people make impluse purchases or decide to buy someone something extra so it would have made much more sense to have the dvd out for the public to buy!!! From looking at the shelves where they sold movies released just before x-mas like Unfaithful/Minority Report i saw them flying off the shelves which would have happended if Signs had been released prior to Jan 7!!
As for x-mas movies, is Unfaithful a x-mas movie or is Minority Report???? Neither have any relation/tie-in to x-mas but were still released prior to x-mas to be good last minute x-mas purchases.