Disney Pixar's Turning Red

[EricJ]

Must be a contractual thing, or at least a "favor" to Pete Docter to make up for shoving all his product onto D+ and to have "legitimised" them as theatrical releases outside of the super-limited awards contention runs.

I keep comparing it to why Disney thought Fantasia 2000 had "flopped" when it underperformed hitting the suburban cineplexes in summer '00:
The IMAX-only (yes, capitals, dammit) Jan-Apr. '00 release had done sold-out business, and everyone who WANTED to see the movie beat a path to the door of whatever major city had a commercial IMAX screen back then. (Boston didn't have a non-museum one, the nearest was Providence RI, and I wouldn't have seen it at all except for a NYC meeting.)
When the movie finally got its mainstream wide release, there were almost no ads, no press reviews--critics had already reviewed it in January--and those who didn't already hate the concept of Disney sequels either went to see it on brand name, or had some existing IMAX fan drag them to it.

And yes, I'm guessing regular theatrical releases are contractual, to keep them from being classified as Direct-to-Video, and all the regulations that status has at D/P from the old Lasseter-vs.-Tinkerbell days.

[Ben]

The problem with F2K was exactly that: it was designed as an event and it played best as an event as an "Imax Experience" venue, where it played gangbusters. But then anyone that had wanted to see it had seen it — twice in my case in two different London locations — so the novelty had worn off and a summer release just wasn’t the best timing.

I did go again, but the regular 35mm showings just lacked that sense of being something special that the Imax screens gave it, especially with the decked out lobbies that took over the entire venue. F2K didn’t feel that special again until just this past January, when I ran it in our screening room and it felt both intimate and grand again.

To me, it kind of doesn't even feel like a "sequel", since it is, even with the originally intended F40 sequences cut out, more of a revision, or "continuation" as the announced first title alluded to. It very likely won’t happen, but I still hold out hope that we get a Fantasia100 in 2040.

To make up the runtime for F2K in January, I added the "Fantasia World" shorts in support: the restored and completed Clair de Lune, Destino, One By One, Lorenzo and The Little Dutch Girl, complete with a nice little opening title segment, and a potential third film could easily include these titles mixed in with some favorites from both films and one or two new sequences.

Disney+ could have an awesome Fantasia section. But then D+ could have a lot of awesome things…