Why no limited releases of blockbusters?

[Bluyoda]

I have heard of Disney's approach of putting their classics in the fault again

after some time they have been out on BD.

I think this would be a great approach for all studios in select cases!

Star Wars obviously can't get released now, since they are working on

revised versions, but many other blockbusters that aren't being released

because of limited market penetration, could be released for some time to

satisfy the hardcore fans, and then locked away for some time, until market

saturation is large enough to make the big bucks.

What do you think of this concept?

[Sgt Pepper]

It's smart business, but it can be incredibly annoying to customers. I'm mainly talking about Disney here. "The Lion King" is one of the most popular movies of all time, and where is it? Out of print. I've noticed that Disney does keep certain titles out of the vault (Pirates of the Caribbean, the Pixar BDs) and the vault is kind of restricted to their classic animated films. Again, it is smart business because you can bet your ass that when "The Lion King" hits BD, it will be the top selling disc of that week.

[Jeff Kleist]

The Disney Vault works mostly on the cyclical nature of human reproduction. In other words, the idea is that you catch all the kids in the Disney butter zone of 1-8 years old with each movie once, forcing their parents to buy it.

Blockbuster films don't really work the same way, and are part of a movie studio's regular revenue stream.

[Bluyoda]

Yeah, I too think that Disney should release their classics often enough, so

that kids can actually see them when they're still young enough.

The idea is that we, the so called early adopters should be rewarded for being the first, and therefore get all the 'goodies'. Don't you think so?

However, now it's almost too late for that, since many big titles have been announced, more or less officially.

[BillieCassin]

Disney is the only one who can really get away with this. The idea of artificially making a mass-market consumer product "limited" is pretty distasteful in most ways.