Beauty and the Beast (2017) (1 Viewer)

[Edwin-S]

Really? Man. This is why I don't like having to import discs. The Amazon site over there shows the region as B/2. I have to admit that I like the look of the SB cover more than the regular Blu, so I might as well let it go now. I'll have to spend more time checking into whether a disc is truly region locked if I want to try doing this again.

It still pisses me off that Disney and Lionsgate is forcing me to have to import 3D discs, with all of the attendant costs that come along with that.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Amazon.co.uk will normally default to displaying "Region B" in their product metadata. It's probably just the default setting, or maybe something they do to protect themselves against returns if a product doesn't work as expected.

In general, Disney BD discs are region free, with the notable exception of the 3D conversion of Ratatouille.

I would highly recommend purchasing a region-free Blu-ray player. Although on principle it's an unfair tax for us to pay, with the disc market continuing to fragment, and with 3D support for the home all but dead in North America, it's really the only way forward for fans of disc collecting and 3D titles who want to continue to grow those collections in the coming years. Physical media is continuing to decline, and for what amounts to be less than the cost of four new Twilight Time or Criterion discs, you can keep yourself in this hobby for a few more years.

More and more of the tiles I want, or the format configurations I want, are not being released in Region A. I think I spent $60 for the chip needed to modify my existing player, and now I can play anything from anywhere in the world. I'd agree completely that it's unfair that that burden fell on me, but I have no regrets about making myself region-free.

 

[Mark Booth]

Nine months after its release, 'Beauty and the Beast' remains my favorite film of the 2017 season.

Mark

 

[TJPC]

The 3D version is now for sale on Amazon.ca at “popular prices”

 

[Jake Lipson]

I'm bumping this thread because we need to talk about this article.

https://www.thewrap.com/original-be...ncluded-sequel-starter-for-luke-evans-gaston/

I get that Disney would want a sequel to this film because it was a massive success. But who on Earth would ever think that Gaston becoming a beast would be a good idea even for a second?

Like...really?

Thank goodness cooler heads prevailed.

The "sequel" to this film is the remake of Aladdin, and the sequel to Aladdin is the remake of The Lion King, and so on. Disney's animation library as a whole is the franchise, not any one individual property.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I really wish they would just leave things alone and come up with some new ideas. It's pretty sad, really.

I "get" that they're making money this way. But, in effect, they are limiting themselves by not creating new properties.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I "get" that they're making money this way. But, in effect, they are limiting themselves by not creating new properties.

Long term, it's going to be a problem.

Between rising ticket prices far outpacing inflation, the decline in quality of the theatrical experience itself, the shrinking of the theatrical window, the collapse of physical media, and the abundance of cheap streaming rentals and subscriptions, and even cheaper illegal downloading, with more affordable home equipment than ever before, we're living in a time where we're being asked to pay more than ever to see a film on the big screen, but we're also being given more opportunities than ever to see it somewhere else for far cheaper. The end result is that a lot of types of films that had been successful on big screens in the past aren't doing what they once did, and in a lot of cases, aren't being made anymore. The mid-budget movie that used to be the bread and butter for the studios year round are basically extinct as a genre.

Disney has figured out, both for theatrical movies nowadays, as well as Broadway over a decade ago, that with how much everything costs these days, the one thing an audience doesn't want is to feel that they're risking their money on something they won't like. I'm enormously sympathetic with the audience on this point, especially for Broadway - now that a Broadway ticket costs (on average) a hundred dollars or more, I don't think anyone can be faulted for not wanting to spend that money on an unknown. Beauty And The Beast was, The Lion King is, and Frozen will be soon enormously successful on Broadway, because audiences know that they will like it before they've even seen it. If you're taking your kids to see a Broadway show, can you afford to spend $500 or more on tickets for the whole family for something that you and your family might hate, that might be inappropriate or scary or confusing or boring? Or, if paying that much is a given regardless of what you're going to see, might you feel more comfortable spending that money on something that you know everyone will enjoy?

In the short term, this has brought Disney tons of money, as they've practically cornered the market on "safe bets". But in the long term... there's only so many times you can remake the same thing before an audience loses interest. We've seen tons of remakes and reboots from every major and minor studio offered in recent years, and the audience is starting to catch on. For every "Ocean's Eleven" that takes a good premise and does it better than the original, there are ten "Robocop" remakes that the audience never asked for or wanted, that have been sanitized to qualify for an all audiences rating. Even Disney is no longer immune to this - their "Pete's Dragon" remake was dead on arrival. The original Pete's Dragon was not a critical success and though some people love it, it's not one of Disney's universally acclaimed films. But Disney went ahead and remade it, and the remake was not the success they were hoping for. And, just applying a little critical thinking, why should it have been? If you remake a film that's neither critically acclaimed nor beloved by audiences, why would that same audience come to see it again? It turns out that this time, they didn't.

Ultimately, you can definitely get some bites out of the nostalgia apple, but you also need to make new stuff. Disney's latest animated films have been very successful - Frozen, Moana, Coco, etc. I'm guessing that those will get live action re-dos in twenty years.

But looking at the staggering amount of talent both in front of and behind the camera on these recent remakes, I can't help but wonder what those same people might have done if Disney had said, "Here's $100 million dollars, make a movie that you're passionate about, that families can enjoy, but that's something we haven't really seen before."

 

[Jake Lipson]

Beauty And The Beast was, The Lion King is, and Frozen will be soon enormously successful on Broadway, because audiences know that they will like it before they've even seen it. If you're taking your kids to see a Broadway show, can you afford to spend $500 or more on tickets for the whole family for something that you and your family might hate, that might be inappropriate or scary or confusing or boring? Or, if paying that much is a given regardless of what you're going to see, might you feel more comfortable spending that money on something that you know everyone will enjoy?

I would add Aladdin to your list of Broadway successes Disney has achieved with this model.

To further underscore your point, I am seeing its touring company early next year with my family and friends and making a lengthy out-of-state trip to do so. Tickets for our entire party of five people were $495. Making the trip for Aladdin, as opposed to some other show, was my choice because the film is #1 on my all-time favorites list, and I've been dying to see the stage production. But it certainly helped that my brother and his girlfriend, who are among those joining us, are interested in seeing it, too. Had I chosen some other, less branded show to see, they might have been less interested in joining us for that.

their "Pete's Dragon" remake was dead on arrival. The original Pete's Dragon was not a critical success and though some people love it, it's not one of Disney's universally acclaimed films. But Disney went ahead and remade it, and the remake was not the success they were hoping for. And, just applying a little critical thinking, why should it have been? If you remake a film that's neither critically acclaimed nor beloved by audiences, why would that same audience come to see it again? It turns out that this time, they didn't.

To be fair, the new Pete's Dragon was also budgeted at a smaller cost ($65 million) than most of Disney's current remakes. At a $143 million worldwide gross, I'm not sure if it would have made money, but it certainly didn't lose them as much as, say, Alice Through the Looking Glass did earlier the same summer. But your point is still valid and is well taken.

As an aside, I'm one of those people who likes the original Pete's Dragon, and I liked the remake very much, too, but I think the word "remake" being applied to it is very strange. I'm not sure what else to call it, but if you look at the plot of the old film and the plot of the new film, the only things they have in common are a boy named Pete and a green dragon named Elliot who can turn invisible. The plot, setting, other characters, style and tone of the two films are entirely different. It's like the filmmakers of the new one watched the first film and decided they didn't need any of it. If the boy and dragon had been given new names, it would have been a new property altogether. And I like the new one, but I think it is pretty odd to bank on name recognition of a prior film if you are going to strip the new film of the prior one's identifiable features. So, I'm not really sure what Disney was trying to do on that one was.

Disney's latest animated films have been very successful - Frozen, Moana, Coco, etc. I'm guessing that those will get live action re-dos in twenty years.

Frozen and Moana, yes. Coco would be more surprising because it is Pixar, and thus far Pixar's library has been off-limits for remakes. (The guy in charge of Disney live-action has even said this.)

 

[Josh Steinberg]

To further underscore your point, I am seeing its touring company early next year with my family and friends and making a lengthy out-of-state trip to do so. Tickets for our entire party of five people were $495. Making the trip for Aladdin, as opposed to some other show, was my choice because the film is #1 on my all-time favorites list, and I've been dying to see the stage production. But it certainly helped that my brother and his girlfriend, who are among those joining us, are interested in seeing it, too. Had I chosen some other, less branded show to see, they might have been less interested in joining us for that.

Exactly! You're willing to spend nearly $500 because it's a live production of something that you already love; you know that you will go in there on the night of your show and see a story that you enjoy, with songs that you enjoy, with characters portraying actors in a certain style that you already like.

Would you spend that same $500 for a show that you had never seen before? That starred actors you were unfamiliar with? Telling a story you didn't know? if it winds up being the greatest thing you've ever seen, that might be worth the price, but if you dislike it, that's a hell of a lot of money to be gone in an instant for something you didn't enjoy.

The end result of this, though, is that Broadway is in a lot of trouble these days. Everyone has raised prices, it's not just Disney productions of stuff that you know you'll like, it's everything. After mandatory and unavoidable service charges, the price of the cheapest ticket to the average Broadway show is now about $100. These are options for the savvy buyer to get in cheaper: the TKTS window in Times Square offers discounted same-day tickets to a bunch of shows, some shows will run promotions with cheaper tickets during a certain time period, and there are lottery drawings and rush tickets for certain shows. But, if you're just a regular person who wants to buy a pair of tickets to a show, at the low end you're spending close to $200 for a pair, and on the high end, you could easily spend $400 or more on a pair. In my book, that's outrageous. So what ends up happening is that people are only willing to spend that money on stuff they know in advance that they'll like, which means that Frozen will have no trouble, but just about any other new show will. I can't afford to spend $100 on a gamble for entertainment, especially when I can watch a movie at home for free or $4 on iTunes. If these shows offered some $25 tickets, or kept prices closer to $50, I'd take gambles on more things.

I think the same thing is starting to happen with theatrical movie releases. Ticket prices keep going up, presentation standards are going down (unless you're willing to pay a surcharge for a premium auditorium), staying at home is easy and cheap, so studios are making more and more event films designed to lure you out of the house by promising you something so big that it must be seen in a theater. And that's great when it works... but it also makes it that much harder to make smaller films in the same environment and to get them seen, especially when the audience knows it can just wait two or three months and catch it on Netflix for free.

Ultimately, I don't think this business can survive if the only things people come out for are four or six tentpoles per year. The theaters won't be able to afford to keep their doors open year round just for five or six busy weekends out of 52.

So, you know, good on Disney for not making the Gaston-as-Beast sequel. There's room at the multiplex (and in my heart) for films that are remakes and reboots and tentpoles and franchise films, so long as that's not the only option that exists.

 

[Traveling Matt]

Between rising ticket prices far outpacing inflation, the decline in quality of the theatrical experience itself, the shrinking of the theatrical window, the collapse of physical media, and the abundance of cheap streaming rentals and subscriptions, and even cheaper illegal downloading, with more affordable home equipment than ever before, we're living in a time where we're being asked to pay more than ever to see a film on the big screen, but we're also being given more opportunities than ever to see it somewhere else for far cheaper. The end result is that a lot of types of films that had been successful on big screens in the past aren't doing what they once did, and in a lot of cases, aren't being made anymore. The mid-budget movie that used to be the bread and butter for the studios year round are basically extinct as a genre.

Disney has figured out, both for theatrical movies nowadays, as well as Broadway over a decade ago, that with how much everything costs these days, the one thing an audience doesn't want is to feel that they're risking their money on something they won't like. I'm enormously sympathetic with the audience on this point, especially for Broadway - now that a Broadway ticket costs (on average) a hundred dollars or more, I don't think anyone can be faulted for not wanting to spend that money on an unknown. Beauty And The Beast was, The Lion King is, and Frozen will be soon enormously successful on Broadway, because audiences know that they will like it before they've even seen it. If you're taking your kids to see a Broadway show, can you afford to spend $500 or more on tickets for the whole family for something that you and your family might hate, that might be inappropriate or scary or confusing or boring? Or, if paying that much is a given regardless of what you're going to see, might you feel more comfortable spending that money on something that you know everyone will enjoy?

Josh, I understand your breakdown but would argue things have unfolded just a little bit different.

The studios evolved, over the course of consolidating and corporatizing these last twenty-five years or so, to prioritize profit over artistic merit with a hermetic-like discipline. This meant greater emphasis on movies guaranteed to make money (movies with built-in audiences) and less emphasis on movies lesser known but not super cheap either (mid-budget movies). Audiences weren't deterred by such movies. They were made less available.

At the same time, on the way to higher profits, the studios abdicated their trust with audiences - going back decades in most cases - by not providing fresh and original entertainment regardless of dollar value. Cheap movies had cheap ideas, expensive movies had no flavor because they needed to appeal to everyone while offending no one, and average movies again were harder to find.

Are today's audiences more reluctant to spend money on things they don't know well, or even at all? Entirely possible, but only because the intellectual and artistic vacuum created by this point of view generates an immense sense of scarcity and distrust. The Hollywood pioneers (we know who they are) took risks. The Hollywood of today does not. Audiences pick up on that and invariably return the favor in kind, prompting the studios to proceed as if they were right. And so goes the cycle.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Matt, I think we're looking at a lot of the same things and using different words to try to describe and understand a similar phenomenon. I don't particularly disagree with anything you've written, but I feel like your well thought out analysis is only part of the picture.

Are today's audiences more reluctant to spend money on things they don't know well, or even at all?

I think they are. But I don't think it happened in a vacuum. I think the different creative industries set themselves down that path.

I think prices have gone up disproportionate to inflation for a lot of entertainment, at the same time as the number of entertainment options exploded.

For instance, studios aren't really making mid-budget movies anymore. They either make $100+ million blockbusters, or they distribute self-financed micro-budget features, or they finance (relatively) inexpensive prestige pictures. But it's not as if there isn't an audience for mid-range productions - there is. The mid-level movie has moved to television, where it's morphed into the prestigious "limited event series". The mid-budget movie became Breaking Bad and Stranger Things.

In my neighborhood, an IMAX 3D movie is $27, a non-IMAX premium screen is $25, and a standard 2D digital presentation is almost $17. So I could spend $17 to see a movie on what's likely to be a small screen, with a presentation that's probably not state of the art. Or, I could wait two months and get it digitally on iTunes for a $5 rental. I could wait an extra month and watch it on Netflix for free. Illegal downloading is even cheaper and easier.

I don't think the kind of content we watch is changing that drastically. But I think what we're willing to pay for, and pay a high price for, is. It wasn't too long ago that you either saw a movie in theaters on a giant sceeen, or you wanted a year or more to watch it on a small television, cropped to fit your screen. Now, the theatrical presentation might be the weakest link in the chain. For many of us here at HTF, for not a crazy amount of money we have systems that meet or exceed what you find in theaters. And for people not at that level, what they have at home is still miles ahead of what we had at home 20 years ago.

More and more people are being priced out of entertainment options that involve going out, whether it's a movie, a concert or a ballgame. What used to be regular activities are turning into activities reserved for special occasions. At the same time, the options for entertainment at home have never been better, easier or cheaper.

 

[Edwin-S]

I really wish they would just leave things alone and come up with some new ideas. It's pretty sad, really.

I "get" that they're making money this way. But, in effect, they are limiting themselves by not creating new properties.

Thank you. Although, it is nothing more than can be expected from a money-grubbing suit like Bob Iger.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

In 2015, I saw The Force Awakens three times during opening weekend and they were all premium and/or IMAX shows priced around $18-20 a ticket. This past weekend. I saw The Last Jedi only once. Tickets for the same theaters as 2015 are now $27. It'll be on Blu-ray in three or four months for less than that. It's hard to justify spending that price. (And there are so many more times now that I say "That looks good; I'll wait til it's on video" than I did five or ten years ago.)

Similarly, U2 are resuming a concert tour they began in 2015, with the plan being that the same staging and show design will be used. In 2015, they sold out 8 shows in my neighborhood. For the 2018 shows announced for the same venue, they have put two shows onsale, and neither has sold out. I don't think 100,000 people decided that they didn't like U2 anymore. The prices went up by an absurd degree. I had $80 tickets one night in 2015, and those exact same seats on this new tour are now $175. I had $100 tickets for a different night in 2015, and those same seats on this new tour are now $330. I don't know a ton about economics, but I know that in the past years, I didn't get the kind of raise that would make $100 from two years ago equivalent to $330 today.

I think the makers of entertainment are getting too greedy with what they want to charge, and I think the audience is adjusting their media consumption accordingly.

I'll spend $27 on a Last Jedi ticket cause I know I love Star Wars; or $175 on a U2 ticket because I know I love the band. But the flip side to that is that it doesn't leave much money in the budget to take expensive chances on unknown qualities.

 

[TravisR]

In 2015, I saw The Force Awakens three times during opening weekend and they were all premium and/or IMAX shows priced around $18-20 a ticket. This past weekend. I saw The Last Jedi only once. Tickets for the same theaters as 2015 are now $27. It'll be on Blu-ray in three or four months for less than that. It's hard to justify spending that price. (And there are so many more times now that I say "That looks good; I'll wait til it's on video" than I did five or ten years ago.)

Similarly, U2 are resuming a concert tour they began in 2015, with the plan being that the same staging and show design will be used. In 2015, they sold out 8 shows in my neighborhood. For the 2018 shows announced for the same venue, they have put two shows onsale, and neither has sold out. I don't think 100,000 people decided that they didn't like U2 anymore. The prices went up by an absurd degree. I had $80 tickets one night in 2015, and those exact same seats on this new tour are now $175. I had $100 tickets for a different night in 2015, and those same seats on this new tour are now $330. I don't know a ton about economics, but I know that in the past years, I didn't get the kind of raise that would make $100 from two years ago equivalent to $330 today.

I think the makers of entertainment are getting too greedy with what they want to charge, and I think the audience is adjusting their media consumption accordingly.

I'll spend $27 on a Last Jedi ticket cause I know I love Star Wars; or $175 on a U2 ticket because I know I love the band. But the flip side to that is that it doesn't leave much money in the budget to take expensive chances on unknown qualities.

Those concert prices are nuts but at least U2 has a giant stage show that must cost a million bucks or more. I realize many factors are at play with movie theaters and I've only 'suffered' ticket prices going up about a dollar in the last year but what has the average consumer gotten out of recent price increases?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

They do and it's a great stage show. It's also the exact same one from 2015, which is fine, but...doesn't explain why it should magically cost so much more from then to now.

In the time my IMAX price jumped, they closed for four months and put in new seats and a new laser projection system. That does cost money, but remember wheh businesses would improve their product as a matter of keeping business, and not as an excuse to charge more? My reaction to the increase is to be more selective about what I see, to reduce/eliminate repeat viewings, and I'm also less tolerant of screw ups. For $10, I'll accept an honest mistake. For $27, it better be perfect. And I don't think the regular theaters are delivering a product worth $16.50 in a lot of cases. My moviegoing habits have changed so much in a short time due to the pricing.

I think it's concerning that while the grosses go up every year, the actual attendance keeps going down.

I don't think there's a way to measure this, but I wonder how much business movies like The Big Sick or The Disaster Artist are losing because potential audience members are saying "I'd like to see that, but I can wait three months to see it at home on Netflix."

 

[Mike Frezon]

But looking at the staggering amount of talent both in front of and behind the camera on these recent remakes, I can't help but wonder what those same people might have done if Disney had said, "Here's $100 million dollars, make a movie that you're passionate about, that families can enjoy, but that's something we haven't really seen before."

Like what Walt himself would have said to his talented group of artists...

 

[Jake Lipson]

Would you spend that same $500 for a show that you had never seen before? That starred actors you were unfamiliar with? Telling a story you didn't know? if it winds up being the greatest thing you've ever seen, that might be worth the price, but if you dislike it, that's a hell of a lot of money to be gone in an instant for something you didn't enjoy.

Well, I would be happy to support new theatrical voices like that, but I was a theatre major in college and I have a completed play on my hard drive, which is based on my own original idea and not adapted from anything, that nobody wants to produce. So, you know, *I* am probably not the best sample for that question. Whether or not my family who are coming would care that much if the show were not Aladdin is another question altogether, and they are the ones who support your point.

Broadway has, fortunately, had an influx of original shows succeeding of late -- Memphis, Something Rotten!, Dear Evan Hansen, Come From Away, Hamilton (based on a biography based on history), Fun Home (loosely adapted from a graphic novel, but not from a blockbuster film, huge branded property or song catalog.) So, original work is succeeding and cutting through, but it's a lot harder and a lot more infrequent than it used to be.

The same is true for film. Great original work is happening if you know where to find it. It's just harder to get those projects made at the big studio level, so you've got to look to specialty divisions like Focus Features or prestige independent distributors like A24 to find things that don't fit the mold of the studio system.

As we've been discussing in the Disney-Fox thread, one of the big questions in the merger is what will happen to Fox Searchlight, which has been a reliable distributor of quality interesting films for a long time. This year, they've got two Best Picture nomination shoo-ins with The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. If this merger had happened a few years ago, I have a very difficult time believing that Disney would have grenlit to either one of these.

They are about as far from Beauty and the Beast as you can get, but are both doing well for Searchlight based on their smaller budgets and awards buzz. Whether Disney has a desire to make that kind of movie anymore is an open question. They did back when they owned Mirimax, but then, under Bob Iger, that got sold off not long after he started his acquisition strategy with Pixar.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Well, I would be happy to support new theatrical voices like that, but I was a theatre major in college and I have a completed play on my hard drive, which is based on my own original idea and not adapted from anything, that nobody wants to produce. So, you know, *I* am probably not the best sample for that question.

Fair enough!

If and when you get produced, please come back and let us know - let me know. I love to support HTF members when I can.

 

[Jake Lipson]

If and when you get produced, please come back and let us know - let me know. I love to support HTF members when I can.

Thank you -- duly noted and appreciated. Nothing is anywhere even remotely close to on the docket at the moment, but we'll see what happens.

And now back to your regularly scheduled thread...

I'm struggling to conceive of what a Gaston-as-Beast sequel would have been like. Would we suddenly be expected to empathize with the character we're supposed to hate in the first film and hope for his redemption? If so, that would have been a big challenge, and basically a rehash of the Beast's story from the first film. If he was just supposed to terrorize Belle and company as a vengeful beast, that wouldn't have been a very interesting idea either. This concept seems very poorly thought out or, more likely, not really thought out at all by Disney. Thank goodness they came to their senses and dropped it.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I originally posted this over in the music forum in Mike's Disney thread...but then I thought I should post it here, too, in case anyone interested in this film specifically doesn't frequent that thread like a few of us do.

Awards Daily has a really good interview with Alan Menken about the writing process for the remake's new music.

https://www.awardsdaily.com/2018/01...en-beauty-beast-writing-magical-disney-songs/

I still think "Evermore" should win the Best Song Oscar. We'll see.