With the film industry more competitive than ever, sometimes the best movies to present are the ones already in a studio's archives. With this year's crop of re-released pictures like "Star Wars" and "The Little Mermaid" drawing audiences, could older films...

Resurface from the archives

Published 11/13/97

1997 could be called "The golden age of movie re-releases."

With the movie business as competitive as ever, some companies have decided to reload and come out with films that have already been tried and tested, producing mixed results. While some re-releases have soared to new heights, other remakes have not done as well. The re-release tradition continues with Walt Disney's "The Little Mermaid," providing another case study of whether or not people are willing to pay $7 a ticket to see a film being shown again.

The most successful re-release this year, and of all time, has been the George Lucas-directed "Star Wars." Back in 1977, this science fiction classic made its debut on 35 screens, only to quickly become one of the highest grossing films ever. After all the smoke cleared from its merchandise promotions, with some unopened action figure boxes valued at hundreds of dollars and original lithographs priced at almost $5,000, its roughly $4 billion profits outweigh its film-generated revenue, estimated at $1.3 billion.

With weeks atop the number one ranking in revenue during its re-release period, "Star Wars" is ahead of other "successful" re-releases. (Columbia's 1989 restored "Lawrence of Arabia" grossed $7 million, and Miramax's 1995 reissue of "Bell de Jour" grossed roughly over $4 million.)

While "Star Wars" blasted off into new territories, other re-releases this past year didn't fare as well. Paramount, on March 21, re-released "The Godfather," a trilogy in itself depicting the history of the Corleone mafia family through several generations. Shown on 490 screens in select cities on opening weekend, "The Godfather" grossed $230,000 ("Star Wars" appeared on 2,104 screens).

What helped make "Star Wars" successful was a $2 billion global advertising campaign coupled with the timely publicity Lucas generated when he talked about creating three prequels to the "Star Wars" trilogy.

PepsiCo Inc. also created selective promotions and advertising campaigns for its snack, soft drink and fast food chains (Pepsi Cola, Doritos and Taco Bell to name a few). Promotions included free trading cards and fake tattoos to specially made coolers placed in stores with the shape of popular droid R2D2.

Also contributing to its success, the "Star Wars" trilogy was filled with added features and never-seen-before footage.

While it may not do as well as "Star Wars," "The Little Mermaid" could hold its own in the box office by taking viewers away from another animated movie scheduled to be released at the same time, 20th Century Fox's "Anastasia." In addition, the resurfacing of "The Little Mermaid" might also help the performance of the newest Disney film "Flubber," scheduled out on Nov. 26.

Animated films, even if re-released, are a valuable asset to any film studio. Disney re-releases animated features every eight years ("The Little Mermaid" was first shown in 1989).

And with the increased competition recently with 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers and DreamWorks, which has an animated musical about the life of Moses titled "Prince of Egypt" on the way, any successful film re-released or shown for the first time can run a huge profit for its company. "The Lion King" has grossed roughly $1 billion, including global sales and video revenue.

"The Little Mermaid" was impressive enough with a $200 million gross worldwide and Academy awards for best song and best score while being triple-platinum certified.

Unlike "Star Wars," "The Little Mermaid" does not have any added scenes for viewers. Changes include digitally restored print and removing imperfections like dirt and artifacts that were present on the original camera negatives. With the visual effects revamped, the audio was redone as well. The soundtrack was remastered, allowing the film to be heard with four different sound formats.

Roughly, about a dozen titles are re-released annually with eight of them grossing more than $1 million (Disney excluded). Recent re-releases include Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" and the 1967 film "The Graduate." Upcoming re-releases include "Das Boot" and Stephen Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

Although "Star Wars," was one of the more successful films of 1997, re-released or not, reasons for the lack of re-releases besides poor box office showing are a lack of funds needed to remake the films and the flimsy condition of studio archives. Another factor is the time it takes to produce a re-release, which is usually two years.

Even though every re-release may not have the promotions budget of "Star Wars," cleverly packaged movies given a second stint could add money to a movie studio's pocket or help gun down a rival film company's release that is being run for the first time.

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