Dragon’s Tale

One of the most shocking news story’s this week has been Disney buying Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. I think it’s safe to say no one saw this kind of thing happening, and in the end, it could benefit both companies. I can just imagine just what the minds at Pixar and Marvel could come up with if they wanted to make a movie.

Disney has been having trouble lately with money, Pixar being the only thing that’s keeping them alive. Most people don’t understand how something like that happens, but to those that pay close attention to what’s going on, it’s very simple to see. Disney’s live action movies aren’t very popular and don’t do very well in theaters or DVD sales. Race to Witch Mountain and Bedtime Stories both come to mind. Those movie stars don’t exactly come cheap, and after you throw in the special effects, you’ve got quite the bill. Sure, they might turn a bit of a profit, but it’s simply not enough to keep them going, specially since Disney has the habit of releasing these movies almost back to back. You’d think they’d learn from Pixar that one movie a year is good enough. Yes, make that one movie really well written with top-notch acting, then you’ve got your hit that will make a ton of money.

Of course their “Disney Vault” doesn’t help them very much either. The Disney Vault is what they call “retiring a movie”, pulling it off the market in an attempt to keep the movie “fresh” for new generations. You get a year to buy one of their classic animated movies, then they take them all back and “lock” them away until they decide it’s time for a new audience to see them. Sure, a year is a lot of time, but depending on the situation, you can miss out on buying it, or your family can grow and you want to show your son or daughter one of your favorite movies, but since you didn’t think to buy the movie because, you know, you thought you could go to the store at any time and buy a DVD, you’re out of luck.

Of course the other reason they do this is to create a collector’s item. The supply is gone, but the demand is still there. People that want the DVD now have to pay more for it.

But it’s not in any stores.

It’s not at any Disney stores.

It’s only on Ebay.

And it’s being sold by someone in China, and the packaging looks a bit off..

Bootlegs. Yes, Disney pulling their DVDs from the stores to keep them “fresh” leads to bootleggers selling pirated DVDs of all your favorite Disney classics, or people just plain making their own bootlegged DVD. The only way to get your favorite movie is to now buy a DVD off Ebay that someone else made, and looks pretty much like the original, except it costs way more because bootleggers are the only people supplying the product that people want.

So you see, Disney is in trouble and needs more help when it comes to money. They need Pixar, and they’re going to need the money that Marvel can generate with their movies and comics, because it’s either smarten up and stop making live-action movies like Race to Witch Mountain, or keep pumping them out and using profit to pay for them. I’m going to hope that The Princess and the Frog does well in theaters so Disney will see that they should stick to 2D animation, and they’ll let Marvel and Pixar do their own things, and become a stronger company.