Shek, with a total box office gross of $261 million to date is not just the hands down winner among animated films this summer, it is the box office champion of all the movies released so far in 2001 (see 'Shrek Doing Lion King Numbers').  The Shrek DVD, which debuts November 2, apparently aims to do as well in DVD and VHS sales as the film did at the box office.  The two disk DVD contains a mind-numbing plethora of extra behind-the-scenes features, loads of games, a voice-over feature which allows viewers to voice various roles in the film, filmmakers commentaries, the 'Tech of Shrek,' stills, dubbing features, interviews, technical goofs, DTS sound, both panned and scanned and widescreen versions of the film, and much more.  But the most unprecedented aspect of the Shrek DVD is the inclusion of 15 minutes of newly animated footage including a new three-minute ending sequence as well as twelve minutes of interactive menus created by the film's directors.

 

Although the DVD and VHS editions of Shrek will not include a printed SRP on the packaging, Dreamworks is pricing the Shrek DVD and VHS very aggressively.  The two-disk DVD will be priced for a retail of $19.95 while the VHS will be priced for a $15.95 retail.  Given the mass market success of Shrek, the DVDs and VHS tapes will be ubiquitous and heavily discounted in the mass market.  The Shrek toys, brilliantly produced by McFarlane Toys, have done very well in the mass market, but not as well in specialty stores (see 'Shrek Sales Slow in Specialty Stores').   Sales of the Shrek Trading Cards were generally strong (in a weak category), and the video release should afford retailers a chance to sell remaining stocks of cards and toys.

 

Many of the extras on the Shrek DVD, including a number of games and the 'ReVoice'  feature in which you can dub your voice in sequence (and get the characters' mouths to move to your dialogue), will only be available to those who have a CD-Rom drive in addition to a DVD player.   Features like these are clearly the wave of the future as are the 20 or more games for kids that should greatly enhance this DVD's value as a babysitting tool.

 

As a total package there is no denying that the Shrek DVD is state of the art in the amount of material it presents, in the expensive creation of new footage especially for the video release, and for the expanding use of home computing power to enable more elaborate games and features.  This is clearly where the market is headed, but the Shrek VHS release also indicates the lingering power of the VHS format.  The extra animated footage is also included on the VHS tape edition of Shrek (though almost none of the other DVD features are).  This is because there are 90 million VHS recorders in the U.S. and only 20 million DVDs -- though the ratio tightens a lot when one takes into account the fact that only 54 million of the 90 million VCR owners are active VHS prerecorded tape buyers, while almost all the 20 million who own DVD players are active software customers.  In some areas, such as among anime fans and serious movie buffs, DVD ownership has already reached high levels, and the availability of inexpensive DVD players will lead to a major expansion in the number of DVD players this year (see 'Number of DVD Players Doubling This Year').   But for now, Dreamworks made sure that the most important extra on the Shrek DVD was included on the VHS release.