ManaByte
Gold Member
http://www.jimhillmedia.com/mb/articles/showarticle.php?ID=1313
If Disney does this, they better be ready for a firestorm. Disney was considering doing a re-release in 2000 and they sent out copies to certain people to get their reaction. Maya Angelou said that she would spark a nation-wide boycott of all things Disney if the movie was ever released to the public again. Jesse Jackson was also super pissed.
I know that it's been a really rough winter so far. But who would have thought that Hell was gonna to freeze over?
"What do I mean by that?," you ask. Well, I just got word that Buena Vista Home Entertainment will be releasing "Song of the South" on DVD in the Fall of 2006.
That's right. "Song of the South." The Academy Award winning film that former Disney Feature Animation head Thomas Schumacher once told Roger Ebert was on "permanent moratorium" has reportedly been greenlit for release late next year. A special 60th anniversary edition that -- thanks to a plethora of extra features -- will try & put this somewhat controversial motion picture in historial context.
With the hope of avoiding that, BVHE reportedly plans to really pile on the extra features with "Song of the South." Among the ideas currently being knocked around is producing a special documentary that -- through use of clips from that TV movie version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella" that Disney produced back in 1997 as well as sequences from "The Proud Family" & "That's So Raven" -- would demonstrate that a person's color really doesn't matter at the modern Walt Disney Company. There's also talk of including Walt Disney Feature Animation's seldom-seen short, "John Henry," as one of the disc's special features.
Buena Vista Home Entertainment is also supoosedly toying with approaching a prominent African-American performer to serve as the MC on the DVD version of "Song of the South." You know, someone who could then introduce the film, explain its historical significance as well as re-enforcing the idea that "SOTS" was a product of a much less enlightened time in Hollywood's history. I'm told that -- up until recently -- Bill Cosby was actually at the top of Disney's wish list. But now that Dr. Cosby has been accused of inappropriate behavior with several ladies ... Well, let's just say that Bill is no longer Mickey's top choice for this position.
If Disney does this, they better be ready for a firestorm. Disney was considering doing a re-release in 2000 and they sent out copies to certain people to get their reaction. Maya Angelou said that she would spark a nation-wide boycott of all things Disney if the movie was ever released to the public again. Jesse Jackson was also super pissed.