Snow White in France. Chapter 6 : 1992.

1992 is a special year for Walt Disney in France : the EuroDisney resort opens that year and its grand opening will be televised live in the entire world on April 12. The animation studios have started a new golden age: The Little Mermaid came out in late 1990, The Rescuers Down Under at the end of 1991 and grossed 30,226,385 francs with 514,007 tickets in 510 theaters during 11 weeks). However, for Christmas 1992, the planned release is Beauty And The Beast already announced as an astounding success. This lucrative period is traditionally reserved for new animated features in France and the studio keeps making a new one every year.

In these conditions, the first Disney classic has to come out some other time. The chosen period is naturally the following holidays: in February. Most schools being closed from February 22, that year, the release date is settled for February 12, 1992 and the tag line goes : "last release of the century."

A new poster, inspired by the 1987 American one is created for international use: it is indeed the same design that is used throughout the world (except for the obvious translation and various logos). The characters are copied exactly from the previous poster: a slightly stylized version but with color patterns different from the film. The Princess's clothes are pink and purple which echoes the 1938 French posters but also various Technicolor tests done by the artists during preproduction of the film. The main difference lies in the fact that a new background was added representing the cottage where it used to be completely white. The EuroDisney Resort logo appears in the bottom right corner: the park opens two months later.

Technicolor tests

The poster also reminds us that the sound was mixed in Dolby stereo in selected theaters: it is actually the 1987 American restoration that is used here, and the sound was remixed for the occasion. It is also then and probably because of the previous restoration that the transition texts right before the final appearance of the Prince were replaced by a rephotographed non animated version instead of restoring the old French nitrate film, thereby loosing the lyrical aspect of the animation of seasons behind the text.

This poster is available in a 20x24 et en 47x70, with a set of 8 lobby cards.

The trailer is an adaptation of the 1987 American trailer with a mistake in the translation ("L'évènement cinématographique da l'année" when it should be "de l'année").

Blanche Neige in Lille

To convince children to visit the new park next April, Snow White herself and the dwarfs travel from town to town for a tour of previews, advertised in local and national television with many film excerpts. In Lille, the preview is organized as early as January at the Gaumont theater so that the Princess can visit the 30 cities of the tour before the national release date.


That year, en France, Warner Bros is the distributor and the film competes against Adventures in Dinosaur City, Le bal des casse-pieds and Wood Allen's Shadows and Fog.

Week 1: The film earns 4,681,864 francs with 70,608 admissions in 58 theaters, which brings it to 5th rank behind Le bal des casse-pieds, although no theater showing Snow White is in the top 15. In Le film français  trade magazine, one can read: "Holidays are always synonymous for Walt Disney and many of our dear children came to applause an always young Snow White."

En tournée nationale

Week 2: 70,347 tickets (4th place behind Le bal des casse-pieds, JFK and Shadows and Fog). "Snow White moves up one rank, benefiting more than adult oriented films of the 6 o'clock - FF18 discount operation." On a tickets/week ratio, in the period between January 22, and February 25, Snow White is once again on top of the box office with 81,667 admissions and a total (over a period of two weeks) of 149,544.

Week 3: "Snow White, thanks to the vacation, still moves up, especially with a brilliant Monday: 7,373 admissions."

Week 4: the film is robbed of the first place of Paris admissions by the release of Diên Biên Phù.

Week 5 : end of the holidays and decrease of admissions.

Here are a few figurs for Paris and its suburbs:

	From 02/12 to 02/18 (1st)	From 02/22 to 02/25 (2nd)	From 02/26 to 03/03 (3rd)	From 03/04 to 03/10 (4th)	From 03/11 to 03/17 (5th)	From 03/18 to 03/24 (6th)
George V	3 133	2 903	1 723	1 356
UGC Normandie	3 378	3 466	3 006	2 847	3 177
UGC Triomphe						1 789
Forum Orient Ex.	1 831	1 174	890
Gambetta	3 800	2 820	1 998	1 899	1 352	400
Montparnos			785	651	261
Mistral	2 420	2 176	1 720	1 736	953	393
St Lambert						351
Pathé Clichy	3 534	3 143	2 085	1 935	1 312	743
UGC Montparnasse	3 841	3 321	1 940	1 442	966	598
UGC Convention	3 221	2 023	2 350	1 795	1 178
Rex	4 666	5 958	5 671	5 524	3 415	1 070
UGC Lyon Bastille	2 872	2 405	1 447	1 331	760	432
UGC Gobelins	3 457	3 336	2 417	2 208	1 399	423
TOTAL PARIS	36 153	32 725	26 032	22 724	14 773	6 199
Calypso Viry	504	428	443	360	246	58
3 Orangeries Draveil	679	628	485	416	277
Conti Isle Adam	826	787	776	669	280	87
4 Perray			1 176	1 194	645	226
Ciné Robespierre Vitry	850	587	555	422	388	63
Espace St Quentin	1 561	1 619	1 430	1 897	1 357	355
Arcel Corbeil	1 002	1 055	1 052	1 028	693
3 Vincennes			674	700	663
Dalton Sevran	600	555	556	570	378	140
4 Champs Palaiseau		930	859	879	549	211
Tricycles Asnières	1 133	1 084	555	505	420
Espace Cinéma Evry		1 459	1 701	1 515	924	307
Delta la Varenne		1 028	1 214	1 070	740	199
Pléiade Cachan			1 131	1 102	612
Buxy	1 258	1 082	1 158	1 346	749	186
UGC Vélizy	2 787	2 464	2 142	2 343	1 729	776
Artel Créteil	3 084	2 359	2 345	2 479	1 607	695
Artel Rosny	3 211	3 085	2 711	3 191	2 416	878
Artel Marne	2 312	2 180	2 301	2 357	1 628	529
UGC Ulis Orsay	1 330	923	1 020	1 210	734
Carrefour Pantin	1 019	856	826	834	577	219
Parinor	1 659	1 439	1 463	1 323	1 029
Flanades	806	709	782	1 049	734	186
Français Enghien	2 752	3 050	2 622	2 810	2 036	568
Pathé Belle Epine	1 978	1 921	1 793	1 896	1 132	414
Pathé Champigny		1 295	1 359	1 382	808
Cyrano Vers. (42F)	1 827	1 853	1 450	1 595	978	408
Parly 2 (42F)			1 159	1 107	1 148
4 Temps (4OF)	1 519	1 337	1 159	1 186	703
C2L St Germ. (4OF)	1 758	1 909	1 550	1 659	1 057
TOTAL SUBURBS	34 455	36 622	38 447	40 094	27 237	6 505
TOTAL PARIS/SUBURBS	70 608	70 347	64 479	62 818	42 000	12 704

Snow White on ice

On May 2, the ice-skating club of St Pierre organizes a Snow White themed gala with music and costumes from the film. A private and local initiative for what is already an American tradition and came out in France in 1988: Disney on Ice, a show where you favorite Disney characters dance with skates on. And the adaptation of Snow White toured the country in February 1990! New lyrics were also written for the songs.

Blanche Neige advertised

Among the Disney reissues of 1992, Snow White soon gives her place to Peter Pan which comes out in July with a new French dub. But some copies still surface through France at special events: in St Michel de Maurienne, on October 28, the only art theater of the district opens and, as an obvious choice, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the star feature.

Of course, once again, many books are released as a tie-in. Among them is a new edition of the comic book adaptation which features the new poster as the cover and many illustrated books telling the eternal tale.

The ever present Le journal de Mickey magazine also mentions the release. The first sheet of a series of Disney villains is dedicated to the Queen, where you can read that one of her accomplice is "Humbert the hunter".

In a more adult register, Art of Animation de Bob Thomas is published in France in 1993 in a translation by Michel Patenaude under the title L'Art de l'animation de Mickey à La belle et la bête with, on the cover, our little Princess whose story is developed in the fifth chapter of the book.


As for records, as soon as 1989 the story as told by Bernard Giraudeau is reissued with a new cover on a 33 rpm LP and also on a brand new format: CD!

On TV, several shows are now entirely dedicated to Disney. First of all Disney Parade, presented on Sunday afternoons on the first network TF1 since 1989 by Jean Pierre Foucault and singer Anne Meson since 1990. If the main attraction of these shows is very often an American TV movie, sometimes a selection of cartoons graces the screen.

But TF1 also offers the Disney Club with two weekly shows on Sunday mornings and Wednesday mornings. 3 hosts Nicolas, Philippe and Julie presented classic cartoons and many Japanese animated cartoons of a remarkable quality given the number of episode produced: DuckTales, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Darkwing Duck or Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers.

On another private network, la 5, many Walt Disney features air on Tuesday nights. And so, for the first time on French television, viewers can see Robin Hood, Alice in Wonderland, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea...

This wild availability of Disney classics on the small screen givs new hope to buyers who spent countless hours looking for a cassette of Snow White. A few producers take advantage of the void left by Disney. Filmation, the American company responsible for The Masters of The Universe on TV, releases a theatrical version of Snow White in France in 1990 called Blanche Neige et le château hanté (Snow White and the Haunted Castle). In the USA, the film was to be called Snow White and the realm of Doom but is renamed Happily Ever After after a trial and the release is postponed three years after a fight between producers and distributors. In France, the film comes out as a regular follow up to Snow White (precisely what Disney wanted to avoid) and the video tape comes out soon after: in 1991, fans fans can grab it from TF1 video.

Bargain bin tape. Does the Queen look familiar?

In the United States, GoodTimes entertainment starts releasing cheap direct-to-video animated features which titles and story lines are carbon copies of Disney classics, including Snow White. Disney executives press charges about the Aladdin video, and loose the trial. Releasing their own productions has never been so urgent, for fear that the copies with similar titles could come to represent Disney quality in the minds of kids around the world. Worse, parents could turn to pirate copies as more and more begin to circulate. In any case, it would be economically illogical not to release the crown jewel of the studio.

A TV Guide Snow White quizz.

On April 3, 1992, Le film français publishes a Disney themed file with an article about Stuart Warrenner, senior vice president of the European branch of Buena Vista Home Video, called "Video beats cinema". BVHV is the leader in this field with 353 million francs in 1991. The tone is set.

In fact, little by little, the firm has released all of its classics even though when the VHS was born, it had proclaimed that only a handful of features would be available in this format for French homes. The excellent sales of Fantasia in 1990 and Cinderella in 1991 pave the way for a visit of Snow White in your living room.

The Sing Along collection is an excellent test to estimate potential sales: they are cassettes with extracts of songs from shorts or features where lyrics appears on screen so you can sing along. For each tape, a cover illustrates the characters of one feature in particular. And Snow White is one of the first cassette to come out in 1987 with two songs: Heigh Ho (retitled "Hé Ho") and The Silly Song. For the time, along with the old super 8 reels, it is the only legal way of buying excerpts of Snow White.

So, and even if the company denies wanting to release its main classic on video, the French may not need to wait another 10 years to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, although it may be on a smaller screen than usual.

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That's all for today folks!