The Princess and the Frog Coming to Blu-Ray in March

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January 26, 2010

Disney has just announced that The Princess and the Frog will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 16. This seems really quick to me, since the movie only opened wide on December 11.

As of last weekend, the movie had only just made $100 million domestically, so maybe that’s why they want to go ahead and get the video money. As I am disappointed but not surprised to see, there will be no special DVD edition. The single-disc DVD includes an audio commentary by co-writers and directors John Musker and Ron Clements and producer Peter Del Vecho, a princess quiz game, and deleted scenes. The Blu-Ray includes an additional eight making-of featurettes that talk about the movie’s hand-drawn animation and its musical structure. The Blu-Ray Combo Pack (which includes a copy of the DVD and a digital version) lists at $45, with the single DVD priced at $30 US.

Disney is pushing hard the idea that this is their newest princess, with lines describing Tiana as “a timeless heroine in the tradition of Snow White, Ariel, Jasmine, and the rest of the beloved royal sisterhood” and bonus features called “The Disney Legacy” and “Disney’s Newest Princess”. The game also “tests viewers’ knowledge of all of Disney’s beautiful princesses”. Unfortunately, I don’t think she’s quite reached that status yet. Give her a few more years of merchandising.

4 Responses

Mike writes:

January 26, 2010 at 5:56 pm

How interesting that we now live in a time when a movie that “only just made $100 million domestically” in just over a month of its release is considered such a failure that the studio has to make a grab for video money so soon. It doesn’t seem all that long ago that $100 mil was blockbuster status for any film, regardless of how long it was out.

Johanna writes:

January 26, 2010 at 6:21 pm

True, but since, according to IMDB, the movie is estimated to have cost over $100 million to make, it’s just barely profitable. (Probably not even so yet once you figure in marketing costs.) As revenue has increased, so have expenses and expectations and ticket costs.

Joan writes:

January 26, 2010 at 7:51 pm

No SE DVD at all? Hey, thanks, Disney, you just saved me twenty bucks.

Girls Get the Short End of the Stick Again: Disney Renames Rapunzel to Tangled » DVDs Worth Watching writes:

March 9, 2010 at 1:01 pm

[...] These changes seem to be because The Princess and the Frog made $200-some million instead of $700-some million, as Up did. Could it just be that people are tired of cookie-cutter movies? The Princess and the Frog, which I haven’t seen, looked like yet another in the Disney mold, without much to set it apart. I was going to watch it on DVD, coming out this month, but then they decided to cripple that format in favor of pushing Blu-Ray. [...]