Here’s yet another indication that movie theater owners are making peace with the idea that their customers also want to spend time being entertained at home. This weekend 24 Cinemark theaters in five markets – San Francisco, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Cleveland — will charge $5 a ticket for matinee showings of Disney’s Lady And The Tramp, Peter Pan and Cinderella. It isn’t just for nostalgia’s sake. The exhibition chain will also sell Diamond Edition Blu-ray discs for each of the movies. Cinemark still sees an opportunity to lure buyers back. They’ll receive an unspecified “free offer from Cinemark and a special gift” tied to Disney’s upcoming Oz The Great and Powerful, Cinemark says. The company’s James Meredith calls it “a very exciting and unique program” to see the films on a big screen “before they return to the Disney vault.”


The infamous “Disney vault” lol.
No mention of whether they will be exhibited projected on film prints or on video. I can see them just popping in the Blu-ray but it would be nice to see them on film, actually.
When my 15 yr old was a toddler, I was really upset that none of the Disney animated classics were still being re-released in theaters. Disney used to re-release each of their classics every 7 years. Even when VHS came on the scene in 1984 with Disney’s first VHS release (Dumbo), movies still played in theaters. But by 2000, none were in theaters anymore. I had all the Disney classics on VHS by then, and some on DVD, and my daughter watched them on TV sometimes (I restricted their viewing so that when a Disney classic was on, it would be several months before I allowed it to be on again. That way, I hoped to keep them special and not just have her view them as just another cartoon.) But what I REALLY wanted was to take her to a THEATER to see them back then, so they’d be really special to her as they were for me, but I couldn’t. Now they are finally screening in a theater again but it’s too late for my daughter to enjoy them theatrically anymore. It sucks. But it’s good that some of the classics are going to be screened in theaters again. I hope parents take their kids to see them in droves. The only thing is I wouldn’t have the theater offer them in the lobby on DVD. This move may be good for the Disney bottom line but it diminishes the experience of wonder that kids should have seeing these films in a theater. Let Wal-Mart do the Blurays and keep the movies in the theater pure.
Did you not like the 3D rereleases?
I have really bad eyesight. One eye is strong, the other is like 20/400. I can see a little from that eye but it’s input is mostly ignored by my brain in favor of information from my stronger eye. Because of this, I do not have “stereoscopic vision”. I can perceive depth OK, but the effect of stereoscopic vision I can not see. So I am unable to see 3D effects. Even the old 3D from the 50′s with the red and blue glasses, I can not see. Using them only makes the whole screen look red. So 3D is not an attraction for me.