Nostalgia Sells

Everyone was really surprised when The Lion King was re-released at the box office. It raked in a whopping $93,883,136 worldwide. But what could explain this phenomenon? Well, actually, the only people who were surprised by this were studios and box office analyst who assumed that hand drawn animation and 3D are pretty much dead, which on some level holds some truth to it, but they were betting on The Lion King being lackluster at the box office for the wrong reasons. To tried and true fans of Disney films in general, and particularly golden age animated, hand drawn films, we were not the least bit surprised by The Lion King's massive turn at the box office. In fact, we lined up to buy our tickets for the opening weekend, excited to see the beloved animated film on the big screen.

People will buy into Disney movies, even if they are pretty terrible, and they often have been pretty terrible. Just look at G-Force or Old Dogs or Home on the Range. Disney as a brand sells ridiculously well even when it shouldn't. This is the studio that was able to manage to make Beverly Hills Chihuahua into a massive box office success. But what's even more potent than Disney is nostalgia. People were immensely surprised when Facebook groups cropped up in large numbers begging and petitioning for old Nickelodeon programming from the 90's to be played on television. When Nick created a time slot featuring old 90's shows, studios and analyst alike were amazed at just how large the viewership was. It was so successful that during its first night the 90's Nickelodeon block saw the ratings be 850 percent higher than it was previously for the midnight to 2am time slot on which it runs. I was one of many nostalgia fanatics sitting and watching with excitement and pleasure as I got my fix of 90's nostalgia from 12 to 2am. It didn't surprise me that it was a success, nor did it surprise any of the late teens and early 20's that eagerly watched it with.

The largest demographic who was watching that night and that continues to watch that 90's Nick time slot is people ages 18–34. The most sought after demographic is from the 18-44 age range. We are a viable and beloved consumer of the entertainment market, and yet we are consistently misunderstood. Why don't the studios understand that nostalgia, especially well handled nostalgia, sells extremely well?

Hot Tub Time Machine sold really well in part because it was a cornucopia of 80's nostalgia. And the 1980's have become largely recognized for the nostalgia factor with remakes of Red Dawn, Private Benjamin, Poltergeist, and Footloose in the works or ready for release. New installments are also in the works for Beverly Hills Cop and Ghostbusters. So may be I've got it all wrong. Perhaps studios do understand that nostalgia sells. But may be they just don't seem to understand what the heck nostalgia is.

Because to anyone with half a brain, The Lion King was always going to be a juggernaut at the box office. It sold fantastically well in its own time, and bagged two Oscars. I don't want to see a remake of Red Dawn that's updated to work in the modern world. What makes Red Dawn so cool is that, although at times it's full of hokum, it's very much a movie of its time. It could really have only been made in the 1980's. Just a bunch of kids fighting the Soviets. That's awesome! And it could have only worked then and there. Nostalgia is recapturing that sense of wonder we believe to exist in the past, not recreating it. And there's a huge difference and fine distinction between the two.

One of the reasons I really love The Social Network is that it really captures a sort of feeling that's on the tip of our tongues. It's far more than a movie about the invention of Facebook, it's about what the modern world is doing to people and their relationships, and ultimately how that makes us feel. It makes us feel, at times, disconnected and dislocated. It makes the world seem at times very unforgiving. And that's scary. Especially when individualistic self-worth is being measured upon success, and gaining that success at any cost. And the film manages to capture the collective feeling amongst us and express it succinctly. It doesn't recreate the feeling amongst us, because that in of itself kind of sounds really stupid and probably impossible, but rather captures the essence of that feeling. And that's what nostalgia is, it's the essence of what something was like: the culture, the entertainment, the ideas floating around on the tip of are tongue that we just couldn't quite express, but most of us were all feeling. Nostalgia is how we imagine the past, not how the past actually was. The past should stay where it is, in the past. Remakes don't necessarily capture nostalgia, they just try to make money by making us think they have. Now, the re-release of a beloved film that people remember fondly, that's obviously a nostalgia gold mine. And it's the reason that Disney is re-releasing four more films in 3D in the near future, who no doubt will sell absurdly well. Now if only the studios understood what nostalgia was ... Perhaps a few more re-releases of some much loved films will do the trick. But then again, I doubt it.