candydog wrote:
I'll say why I think about Aladdin's sales, seeing as everyone else is and it's relevant, in a way, to the overall topic.
I didn't buy the Platinum (or "special" as it is here) Edition of Aladdin. Why? To be honest, at the time I wasn't as serious a Disney collector as I am now so I was content with my Disney classics on VHS. I now wish I'd got it, as it disappeared in Europe in 2005. I'd oreder the region 1 version while it's available, but I'd rather have all my Disney Classics in region 2 so there's a uniform.
Back in 2004, I was really only buying DVDs which I didn't have on VHS, so Aladdin was just really an oversight. During the first few years of DVDs they were "the new thing" to buy. Now that VHS has pretty much disappeared from stores, Everyone gets DVD. Around 2004 though, people were content to have both. Since Aladdin was generally owned in most Disney-collecting households, at the time, people just didn't see the need to update, as DVD and VHS were still popular.
But the same is true for Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. More so for the Lion King. I can't imagine anyone who had half and interest in Disney not having The Lion King on VHS. Yet these sold more than Aladdin. Remember there were less DVD players installed in homes when those were released too!
Perhaps the "two versions" and "original new song" marketing worked for the earlier two?. Or perhaps not. Who knows?
As for Aladdin, I stand by my earlier post. Marketing for the release will have started around the 3rd anniversary of 9/11, and the Iraq War (which started in March 2003) had reached the point where things weren't going so well (2004: The Insurgency Expands according to Wikipedia, and don't forget the ongoing issue of Abu Gharib and Falluja in 2004 too). It seems clear to me that certain people in the US would be less inclinded to buy a film with a middle-east setting and arab hero, and I believe that is what happened.
European Sales for Aladdin seem to have gone as expected. Evidenced by the fact it went OOP pretty quickly and actually was OOP and hard to find soon after.
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Most of my Blu-ray collection some of my UK discs aren't on their database