Los Angeles – What do you do if you have a popular movie franchise that seems worth continuing but maybe isn’t quite worth pulling out all the stops for with a theatrical release? If you’re Universal Studios Home Entertainment, you make a “DVD original” and start counting the money.
Universal’s cheerleading comedy, “Bring It On: All or Nothing,” sold 750,000 copies in its first week and generated $12 million in consumer spending, the studio said Wednesday. It is the second DVD sequel to the studio’s 2000 hit “Bring It On,” which starred Kirsten Dunst.
“This is one of those classic cases where it makes all the sense in the world to create a new DVD original,” said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
This follows Universal’s successful continuation of its “American Pie” franchise last December by selling 1 million first-week copies of “American Pie Presents: Band Camp.” “Band Camp” had the biggest first-week sales of any live-action DVD original, while “All or Nothing” had the second-biggest.
“It’s all about creating a line of product that is of theatrical level quality based on properties that have tremendous demand,” Kornblau said.
Disney has had bigger openings with animated DVD originals that are sequels to such hits as “Lilo & Stitch” and “The Lion King.” Disney also bypassed theatrical releases for its sequels to “Inspector Gadget,” “101 Dalmatians,” “Aladdin,” “Cinderella,” “Bambi,” and “Lady and the Tramp.” Universal also has succeeded mightily in animation with its more than a dozen “Land Before Time” movies.
“When Universal gets a franchise title where they don’t feel it’s worth $15 million to $20 million to launch with a national theatrical run, they just pocket the money and do it direct-to-DVD,” observed Ralph Tribbey, editor of the industry newsletter DVD Release Report.
“It used to be if you made a film and couldn’t get theatrical release, it pretty much disappeared,” Kornblau said. “That isn’t the case anymore.”
