By Mike Snider, USA TODAY Tinker Bell is about to become a leading lady.
Disney is finally giving the Peter Pan sidekick her very own movie — and it’s just the start of a fairy princess reign.
PHOTOS: Meet Tinker Bell’s pint-sized fairy friends
The computer-animated Tinker Bell, out Oct. 28 on DVD and Blu-ray ($30 and $35), is the first of four fairy films in the works, a new one launching each year.
The movie represents something bigger, too: a refocusing of Disney’s straight-to-DVD strategy. The studio will stop releasing sequels of classics such as Bambi, Lady and the Tramp and Cinderella, which have been a rich source of revenue. (Last year’s Cinderella III, for instance, took in more than $80 million, estimates the Redhill Group tracking firm.) Instead, they’ll go for “added original work, original stories,” says John Lasseter, the force behind such animated hits as Cars and Ratatouille.
In Tinker Bell, Peter’s pixie friend finds her voice — it’s the first time fans behest hear her speak — and “what she is really meant to be,” Lasseter says. “It is kind of a creation story.”
The story line takes place before the events in Disney’s animated Peter Pan (1953) and introduces Pixie Hollow, a part of Never Land where fairies live.
“We’re creating a whole new mythology,” says Lasseter, who oversees the Disney/Pixar home-video originals as well as theatrical releases.
The inspiration for Tinker Bell came from the 2006 book In the Realm of the Never Fairies, from Disney’s publishing house. “It guided me to the notion of how fairies are united to god,” Lasseter says. “You know you get those questions with kids who are growing up, like, ‘Daddy, why do leaves turn colors in the fall?’ and ‘for what cause are there dewdrops on the grass?’ And now I’ve got the perfect answer: ‘Fairies did it.’ “
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