When I saw that The Lion King was coming back to theaters for two weeks I just about had a heart attack...I love Disney movies, especially The Lion King, and I know that a lot of my friends do too, so naturally I've already got solid, unmovable plans to go see it this weekend.
Reading this article, I found out that the re-release was to promote another re-release...of The Lion King on Blu-Ray. This turned out to be a much more successful marketing strategy than predicted, grossing almost 2 times what was estimated, surpassing all other new releases this weekend. That is pretty unlucky for the highly anticipated "Drive" with Ryan Gosling.
This all got me thinking about marketing strategies like this one, so I "liked" The Lion King on Facebook and saw all of the promoting they had been doing there, posting pictures and statuses about the re-release and its wonderous 3d magic. "Pre-order your Blu-Ray today!" the website shouts at me...Gee, I just might. That's right cooperate America...you got me. And all it took was the re-release of the highest-grossing animated film of all time.
1 comment:
Unfortunately Disney will always find a way to make millions on other people's backs and I don't have a lot of sympathy for that. I realize I am talking about an American Icon, but some gods have clay feet as they say.
A case in point: Ozamu Tezuka is considered in Japan (and the world) the Godfather of Anime, the father of manga and the god of comics, to name a few epithets. His influence in visual storytelling is simply enormous, probably only comparable to Will Eisner in the US.
Disney (the company) shamelessly stole one of Tezuka's most popular stories, Kimba The White Lion,(Jungle Emperor in Japan) simply renaming it The Lion King! without giving him any credit whatsoever. Disney (the man) was notorious for taking credit for other people's stories, and not many could fight against that, giving his enormous popularity and his political connections. One needs to put a historical perspective on this, of course.
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