(Source: www.imdb.com)
Yep, they're definitely slamming back the bubbly in Disney's offices. One day after the Mouse House claimed they had more than doubled their quarterly profits, The Walt Disney Company is now saying that consumers snapped up 5 million copies of the Cars DVD during the first two days it was on sale.
Keep in mind that this is the first, bare-bones incarnation of the Cars DVD: knowing Disney/Pixar, they'll be bringing out a double-dip with all the bells and whistles. Most DVD buyers are savvy enough to know this too. Which means that five million people were so Cars-crazy that they weren't willing to wait a couple of months for the fancier version. That's gotta be good news for Disney animation boss/Cars directorJohn Lasseter, who's trying to return Disney Animation to its glory days.
There's no news so far about Cars' online sales (Disney made the movie available for legal download on Apple's iTunes store), but Disney's not expecting much. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Disney CEO Robert Iger said that online sales of all Disney product were "relatively small," but "over the next three to five years, we'll be able to monetize at a significant level." That's financial-speak for "we're not making much cash off online sales but, in a couple of years when people have faster computers, I'll be able to buy a small African country."
