Beauty and the Beast Celebrates 10th Anniv With Worldwide Large Format Debut on Jan. 1 - LaughingPlace.com: Disney World, Disneyland and More

Beauty and the Beast Celebrates 10th Anniv With Worldwide Large Format Debut on Jan. 1

Disney's Animated 'Beauty and the Beast' Celebrates 10th Anniversary With Worldwide Large Format Debut at Record 100 Theaters on Jan. 1st
Special Edition Includes Newly Animated 'Human Again' Musical Sequence

Walt Disney Pictures' Academy Award(R)-winning animated classic, "Beauty and the Beast," will celebrate its 10th anniversary with the January 1st release of a new "Large Format Cinema Special Edition," it was announced today (12/5) by Dick Cook, chairman of The Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. This special edition, which includes the newly animated six-minute musical sequence "Human Again" featuring the song written for the original film by Academy Award(R)-winning songwriters Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, will open on New Year's Day in 100 IMAX(R) and other Large Format theaters around the world. That represents a record number for a Giant Screen engagement and surpasses the previous record of 75 established by "Fantasia/2000" two years ago. Working from the film's original digitally stored files (archived on 9,000 CD-ROMs), "Beauty and the Beast" has been meticulously and painstakingly reformatted one frame at a time to take full advantage of the Giant Screen. The film's original tracks have been remixed for this special edition and improved film stocks have been used to make this animated favorite look better (as well as bigger) than ever.

Commenting on the announcement, Cook said, "'Beauty and the Beast' will always hold a very special place in our hearts here at Disney. It was the first animated feature to ever receive a Best Picture Oscar(R) nomination and it helped to revitalize the art of animation and the movie musical. We wanted to celebrate the film's 10th anniversary in a big way and a Large Format release is about as big as it gets. The addition of a never-before-seen musical sequence with a great song by Ashman and Menken is further cause for celebration and we think audiences will respond in a big way to this as well. Seeing 'Beauty and the Beast' on the Giant Screen is like seeing the film for the first time. It is a great motion picture experience and a great way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this landmark film."

Overseeing the new animated sequence and the reformatting of "Beauty and the Beast: The Large Format Cinema Special Edition" were the original filmmakers -- producer Don Hahn and directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale. Under their guidance, a team of Disney's top artists and technicians launched a major effort to remove dust and dirt, add detail and effects, and create new animation for the occasion. Special camera heads and film printers worked around the clock to reformat the original film for the Giant Screen and to create prints (in 8 and 15 perf formats) that would provide an unprecedented level of clarity, dimension and superior sound quality.

Originally released in 1991, "Beauty and the Beast" proved to be a major success at the box office (the first animated feature to cross the $100 million plateau in its initial release), a favorite with moviegoers all over the world and an important milestone for the art of animation. In addition to its unprecedented Oscar(R) nomination for Best Picture, it received five other nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (and won trophies for Best Song and Best Original Score). The film also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy/Musical and garnered two Grammy Awards. A Broadway stage musical, based on the film, was launched in 1994 and is still playing in New York after more than 3,000 performances. It is the tenth-longest running musical in Broadway history.

List of Theaters Worldwide For the Large Format Cinema Special Edition of "Beauty and the Beast"

ARIZONA:

  • Tempe IMAX Theatre of Arizona Mills

CALIFORNIA:

  • Dublin Regal Hacienda Crossing IMAX
  • Irvine GIANT Screen Theatre at the Irvine Spectrum
  • Los Angeles IMAX Theatre at The Bridge, Promenade at Howard Hughes Center
  • Monrovia Krikorian Monrovia Cinema 12 - Large Format Experience
  • Murrietta Movies Experience at California 17
  • Ontario GIANT Screen Theatre at the Ontario Palace
  • Sacramento Esquire IMAX Theatre
  • San Francisco Loews IMAX Theatre @ Metreon
  • San Jose Hackworth IMAX Dome Theatre at the Tech Museum of Innovation
  • Universal City Universal City IMAX Theatre
  • Valenica GIANT Screen Theatre at the Valencia Town Center

COLORADO:

  • Colorado Springs IMAX Theatre at Cinema Point
  • Denver United Artists Colorado Center IMAX Theatre

CONNECTICUT:

  • Hartford Odyssey Theatre Hartford

FLORIDA:

  • Jupiter Crown Odyssey Giant Screen Theatre
  • Miami IMAX Theatre at Sunset Place
  • Orlando Muvico Pointe 21 Theaters
  • St Augustine World Golf Village IMAX Theater
  • Tampa Museum of Science and Industry
  • Tampa Channelside Regal IMAX Theatre

GEORGIA:

  • Atlanta Regal Mall of Georgia IMAX

HAWAII:

  • Honolulu Consolidated's IMAX Theatre Waikiki

ILLINOIS:

  • Addison Marcus Addison Cinema & IMAX Theatre
  • Chicago Navy Pier IMAX Theatre
  • Lincolnshire Regal Lincolnshire IMAX
  • Woodridge IMAX Theatre at Seven Bridges

KENTUCKY:

  • Newport Firstar IMAX Theatre

MARYLAND:

  • Baltimore Maryland Science Center IMAX 3D Theatre

MICHIGAN:

  • Dearborn Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village IMAX Theatre
  • Grand Rapids Celebration IMAX Theatre

MINNESOTA:

  • Apple Valley Imation IMAX at the Minnesota Zoo

MISSOURI:

  • Kansas City Sprint IMAX Theatre at the Kansas City Zoo

NEVADA:

  • Las Vegas Luxor IMAX Theatre

NEW YORK:

  • Buffalo Regal Transit Center IMAX
  • New Rochelle Regal New Roc City
  • New York Loews IMAX Theatre at Loews Theatres Lincoln Square
  • Rochester IMAX Theatre at Tinseltown USA
  • W. Nyack IMAX Theatre at Palisades Center

NORTH DAKOTA:

  • Fargo Century Extreme Screen

OHIO:

  • Columbus Marcus Crosswoods Cinemas & IMAX Theatre

OKLAHOMA:

  • Tulsa IMAX at Cinemarks The Tulsa

PENNSYLVANIA:

  • King of Prussia King of Prussia IMAX Theatre

RHODE ISLAND:

  • Providence Feinstein IMAX Theatre

SOUTH CAROLINA:

  • Charleston Charleston IMAX Theatre at Charleston Aquarium
  • Myrtle Beach IMAX Discovery Theatre at Broadway at the Beach

TENNESSEE:

  • Gatlinburg Gatlinburg IMAX Theatre
  • Memphis Muvico Peabody Place 22 Theaters
  • Nashville Regal Opry Mills IMAX

TEXAS:

  • Dallas IMAX Theatre at Cinemark 17
  • Houston Giant Screen Theatre at the Marq.E Entertainment Center
  • San Antonio Alamo Imax Theatre at the Rivercenter

UTAH:

  • Sandy The Super Screen at Jordon Commons

VIRGINIA:

  • Richmond Ethyl Corp. IMAX Dome at the Science Museum of Virginia
  • Virginia Beach Virginia Marine Science Museum IMAX Theatre

WASHINGTON:

  • Seattle Pacific Science Center's Boeing IMAX Theater
  • Spokane IMAX Theatre at Riverfront Park

CANADA:

  • Calgary, Alberta IMAX Theatre at Paramount Chinook
  • Edmonton, Alberta IMAX Theater at Silver City West Edmonton Mall
  • Langley, British Columbia IMAX Theatre at Colossus
  • Vancouver, British Columbia CN IMAX Theatre at Canada Place
  • Winnipeg, Manitoba IMAX Theatre at Portage Place
  • Halifax, Nova Scotia Empire IMAX Theatre
  • Mississauga, Ontario IMAX Theatre at Coliseum
  • Toronto, Ontario IMAX Theatre at Paramount
  • Woodbridge, Ontario IMAX Theatre at Colossus
  • Montreal, Quebec IMAX Theatre at Paramount
  • Quebec City, Quebec Les Galeries de la Capitale

MEXICO:

  • Aguascalientes IMAX Dome - Museo Interactivo de Ciencia y Technologia
  • Baja California Cecut Tijuana
  • Garza Garcia Planetario Alfa - Centro de Ciencias y Artes Guadalajara OmniPantalla at Cinepolis
  • Leon OmniPantalla at Cinepolis
  • Morelia OmniPantalla at Cinepolis
  • Tampico OmniPantalla at Cinepolis

BELGIUM:

  • Brussels IMAX Theatre Kinepolis

FRANCE:

  • Strasbourg UGC Strasbourg

GERMANY:

  • Speyer Speyer IMAX Classic Filmtheatre, Technik Museum Speyer

ITALY:

  • Milan Warner Village of Italy

NORWAY:

  • Aker Brygge - Oslo Telenor Mobil IMAX Theatre

POLAND:

  • Warsaw Panasonic IMAX Theatre

SPAIN:

  • La Coruna Domus Casa de la Ciencias
  • Las Palmas De Gran Canaria Museo de La Ciencia y Technologia
  • Valencia L'Hemisferic IMAX Theatre

TURKEY:

  • Ankara Arecelik Sinemasi

UK:

  • Cheshire Oaks Warner Extreme Screen
  • London Warner Village of UK
  • Waterloo British Film Institute

HONG KONG:

  • Hong Kong Hong Kong Space Museum

JAPAN:

  • Nagano-Ken Hotaka IMAX Theatre
  • Nagano-Ken Mercian Karuizawa IMAX Theatre
  • Osaka Suntory IMAX
  • Tokyo Sony Music IMAX

SINGAPORE:

  • Singapore Omni-Theatre

THAILAND:

  • Bangkok Krung Thai IMAX Theatre

AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND:

  • Auckland IMAX Auckland
  • Victoria IMAX Theatre Melbourne

SOUTH AFRICA:

  • Johannesburg NedBank IMAX Theatre at Hyde Park
  • Pretoria NedBank IMAX Theatre at Menlyn Park
  • Umhlanga NedBank IMAX Theatre at Gateway
 
--posted December 7, 2001

Source: Buena Vista Pictures Marketing Press Release