Carol Koster of Disney Echo shared the following with me: “The annual meeting of Shareholders of The Walt Disney Company was held in Albuquerque MN today, March 6, 2008. A shareholder got up during the Question and Answer segment to ask Robert Iger, the CEO of Disney, ‘Before the end of my lifetime will I ever see ‘Song of the South’ released to home video?’ To which Mr. Iger replied the now ‘standard’ reply: They discuss the possibility regularly, there are certain issues of ‘sensitivity’ surround this movie and the long ago past era it was made in, times are different now, no immediate plans to release it, but they do regularly revisit it, etc.”
Last year, at the 2007 shareholder meeting, the topic of Disney releasing Song of the South was raised by shareholder Carol Koster. Iger’s response was more encouraging, and it picked up a lot of press.
The year before that, at the 2006 shareholder meeting, the same question was raised. At that time, Iger basically stated that Disney had no plans to bring the movie back.
This marks the third year in a row that Song of the South has been brought up at the annual shareholder meeting. And until they release the movie on DVD, we hope that shareholders keep bringing it up! Thanks to Carol Koster and Shawn Kelly for the news reports.