For decades, the Diwali – Eid season has been the most coveted release period for Bollywood with a majority of films released in this period doing a good round at the Box Office. This year, looks like the season’s charm is working not only on the Box Office but also in the Home Entertainment space.
Ice Age 2, the sequel to ‘Ice Age’, one of the most popular animated movies of all time had a theatrical release in India late April where it did a good showing. The DVD of the animated blockbuster was released in October by Excel Home Videos and has exceeded expectations in terms of sales volumes, becoming the highest selling DVD title for Twentieth Century Fox in India.
Speaking to Animation Xpress.com, Richard Crook, Vice President, International Licensees, Twentieth Century Fox shared, “”The Success has sharpened our focus on India’s growing home entertainment market. Excel Home Videos (our licensee in India), has delivered a fantastic job by successfully targeting the festive holidays”
The success has been attributed to the marketing campaign aimed at cashing in on the festive season and the established franchise of the Ice Age brand. The achievement has renewed Fox’s focus and commitment in India’s Home Entertainment segment.
“With Diwali and Eid becoming more of an indoor affair, the growing hardware penetration has boosted the growth in the home entertainment segment”, said M.N. Kapasi, M. D., Excel Home Videos, (Licensee for Twentieth Century Fox in India).
“At launch itself, ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN is 8 times bigger than Ice Age, though Ice Age did catch up in the long run. The animation and story is so fantastic and such a big hit with children and adults alike- this franchise has already demonstrated very long legs!” he added.
Ice age 2 follows the heroes of part 1 for another incredible adventure in the sequel to a global hit comedy. The comical creatures, Manny, Sid, Diego and Scrat, trying to escape the valley to avoid a flood of troubles, embark on a hilarious journey across the thawing landscape. With its dazzling animation, unforgettable characters and playful music, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown is expected to continue its reign on DVD charts for a while.
Excel has several animated home video releases lined up this month, amongst them being blockbusters like (Disney-Pixar’s) Cars, X-Men 3: The Last Stand and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man’s chest. Keeping in mind the potential of these titles, the publisher has come up with a specific marketing strategy for each of these.
On being asked to elaborate upon the marketing plans, Excel’s M N Kapasi shared,” Each title has a marketing strategy pertaining to its strengths and keeping the TG in mind, CARS will be focussed to children and will have a TV Campaign on Disney and Hungama besides plenty of contests in-stores to win free movie merchandise, etc. With X3, we have a strong sales base (and database) of X1 and X2 purchases and TV Campaign on AXN to assist the release. POC2 probably is one of our biggest releases this year and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL DVDs are currently on the Top Seller Charts for most Retail Chains in the country, it was re-priced at Rs.399/- during the theatrical release of the sequel and we will be pushing its DVD release very hard, besides have already started communicating its Coming through the strong in-product route”