The Care Bears Movie - Release

Release

In 1984, before the film's completion, Carole MacGillvray offered The Care Bears Movie for consideration to major studios in the U.S. Since they did not see the financial potential in a picture aimed strictly at children, they declined the offer. MacGillvray told Adweek magazine in April 1985, "I made several trips, and I was really disappointed. They kept telling me things like 'Animated movies won't sell' and 'Maybe we'd consider it if you were Disney,' but most just said, 'You're very nice, good-bye.' " When few takers were left, she took it to the Samuel Goldwyn Company. A newcomer in the independent market, it agreed to release the film. Comparing the title characters' appeal to Hollywood stars like Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, founder Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. remarked: "Having my children, I know these bears are stars, too."

According to the 1985 edition of Guinness Film Facts and Feats, the Samuel Goldwyn Company spent up to US$24 million on the publicity budget for The Care Bears Movie, the largest at that time. The film's advertising budget was US$4 million; Variety reported that "the beneficiaries of merchandising tie-ins have earmarked $20,000,000 to promo Care Bear products in step with the film's release". For the film's promotion, Goldwyn's staff partnered with Kenner Toys and the fast food chain Pizza Hut; there were also tie-ins on Trix cereal boxes. Parker Brothers published two tie-in books, Meet the Care Bear Cousins and Keep On Caring, shortly after the film's release; both were reissued in October 1985 by Childrens Press.

The Goldwyn staff came up with two advertising strategies, which tested well with the company—one was aimed at the film's target audience of children as young as age five; another targeted grown-ups, parents, and older children. In the words of Cliff Hauser, the distributor's executive director of marketing, "We didn't want parents to think the movie was threatening. So the big debate was—although the formula for success in animated film is the triumph of good over evil—how can you do that in single-image ads?" Jeff Lipsky, vice-president of theatrical at Goldwyn, referred to the first one as "the cheery approach"; ads therein featured the Care Bears on clouds, and carried the tagline "A movie that'll make the whole family care-a-lot". Hauser said, "That's one that a mother can look at and know she can take the 2-year-old to it and not worry." The other campaign, which Lipsky called "more Disney-esque", featured an evil tree whose hands reached out to capture the Bears; its tagline, "What happens when the world stops caring?", was also seen on the official poster. Bingham Ray, Goldwyn's vice-president of distribution, was involved in the promotional efforts.

Around opening time, Hirsh predicted that The Care Bears Movie would be its decade's response to Pinocchio and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, both from Walt Disney Productions. Loubert added, "These characters say something important to children. Our challenge has been to create a very distinct character for each Care Bear. A lot of effort went into bringing out their individuality." Some time afterward, Hirsh conceded that parents had to come to the film, out of respect for the dark content within. "Frightening scenes," he said, "are a necessity for the reality of the hero and villain—just as it works in nursery rhymes. Kids work out their fears this way." TCFC's Jack Chojnacki offered this vindication in the Wall Street Journal: "We consider a film one of the many products we license. When we started the whole Care Bears project we knew the importance of bears in the market but that there was a void. There were no specific bears. In the movie marketplace there was a void for good family-fare films." And, in the words of Carole MacGillvray, "Toy recognition drives this movie."