The Land Before Time Was A Big Box Office Hit - But The Franchise Refused To Go Extinct

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

Until "The Little Mermaid" arrived in 1989 and ushered in another golden age for Disney animation, the '80s were not an otherwise great period for the storied studio. That opened the door for other studios and creators to swoop in and steal some of Disney's glory. Enter Don Bluth, one of animation's most heralded creators, who cut his teeth at Disney before going out on his own. Bluth, with the backing of Universal Pictures, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas, directed "The Land Before Time," one of the most beloved '80s animated films around.

Bluth helped fill the void after Walt Disney passed away, directing movies like "The Rescuers" and "Pete's Dragon." But after becoming a bit disenchanted with the direction of the company he departed the Mouse House and made films like "An American Tail" before telling the tale of Littlefoot and his dinosaur pals. What Bluth did not set out to do — at least not by design — was create one of the most surprisingly enduring franchises in the history of animation. Intended or not, that's precisely what he did, even if he had absolutely nothing to do with the many, many sequels that followed in the '90s and beyond.

In this week's Tales from the Box Office, in honor of the 35th anniversary of "The Land Before Time," we're looking back at the movie, how it came to be, what happened when it hit theaters, how the home video boom gave rise to the slew of low-cost sequels, and what lessons can be learned from it all these years later. Let's dig in, shall we?

Disney animation was struggling a bit to find an identity in the '80s, with movies like "The Black Cauldron" and "The Brave Little Toaster" representing the works of the time. Those films weren't exactly on par with the likes of "Snow White," which helped to revolutionize the medium decades prior. In a 2020 interview with Vulture, Bluth explained that the studio's output informed his decision to leave.

"As I continued to work at Disney, I started to see the things that had made me so impressed disappear from the screen. They were little things — like the water effects and shadows and, more than anything, the psychological effect that goes with characters that are really far out there and scary. I kept watching those diminish."

In short, it was a lack of attention to detail and a perceived drop-off in quality. For a guy like Bluth, that just wasn't going to cut it. Bluth made a real name for himself outside of Disney with "The Secret of NIMH" before his first collaboration with Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, "An American Tail." That went well enough that they decided to collaborate again on another movie — one about dinosaurs that would be loosely inspired by "Bambi," one of Disney's most heralded classics.

"When somebody asks you that question, you say yes," writer Stu Krieger said to Syfy Wire in 2018 recalling his response to Spielberg and Lucas asking if he would like to pen a dinosaur movie for them. He had previously worked on Spielberg's "Amazing Stories," which built the bridge to get him involved with "The Land Before Time." The concept for the film had been kicked around by Lucas and Spielberg for a while but they hadn't managed to nail it down. At one point, it involved dinosaurs but no dialogue. Krieger would ultimately crack the code in collaboration with Spielberg, Lucas, and Bluth.

The movie as we know it centers on a group of young dinosaurs — Littlefoot, Cera, Spike, Ducky, and Petrie — who have to depend on one another in order to reach the Great Valley. Along the way, they encounter great peril, particularly under the threat of the dreaded Sharptooth (which was just a very scary T-rex). The original version of the film was far darker than what ultimately made its way to theaters in 1988 and a fair amount was cut out.

That said, anyone who has seen the film knows that Bluth and co. didn't shy away from putting some really harrowing stuff in there. Specifically, the death of Littlefoot's mother traumatized an entire generation of kids. "Over the 30 years, I've had countless parents come up to me and say, 'Goddamn you, do you know how many days it took to calm my kid down? Or how many times I had to cry watching the movie with my kid?'" Krieger recalled in that same Syfy Wire interview. As for Bluth, he explained in that Vulture retrospective that Spielberg was the one who pushed for that heartbreaking moment.

"I remember we came to that moment in The Land Before Time, and everyone said, 'Oh, this is too hard — no, no, we don't want kids to see this.' It was Steven Spielberg who said, 'Wait a minute.' We all are born, we all live to a certain age, and then we all go. And someday we come back again. Everyone has to go through it. 'This is a moment called the great circle of life.'"

That concept of "the circle of life" is something that would make its way into a Disney classic just a few years later as a major part of 1994's "The Lion King," which was one of the studio's biggest movies ever up to that point. But it was this group of filmmakers led by Bluth who first introduced the concept to the masses via this gang of lovable animated dinosaurs. And audiences loved these dinosaurs.

Universal Pictures released "The Land Before Time" in theaters on November 18, 1988. It was a lean, 68-minute film — an unthinkably short runtime for a theatrically-released movie 35 years removed. The film was well-positioned around the Thanksgiving holiday as a family-friendly option and it had the benefit of having both Spielberg and Lucas' good names attached to it. Bluth's animated flick carried a budget of around $12 million, or roughly $31 million in today's money.

"The Land Before Time" opened at number one, taking in $7.5 million. It was competing against "Child's Play" in its second weekend, as well as "Ernest Saves Christmas," which was also in its second frame. Most importantly, Disney released the animated "Oliver & Company" that same weekend, with the movie coming in a distant fourth place, taking in just $4 million in its debut. Even though it came in second place the following weekend, "Land" made even more money with an $8.1 million haul. It continued to perform well right through Christmas.

All told, Bluth's film finished its run with $48 million domestically to go along with $36.4 million internationally for a grand total of $84.4 million worldwide. Or, adjusting for inflation, just shy of $220 million in today's money. That was roughly seven times the film's production budget. This was also at a time — and this is important — when the home video market started to truly explode thanks to the wide adoption of VCRs and VHS, so the movie would have a very long life after leaving theaters. To that end, it was the home video market that would be directly responsible for the mammoth franchise that sprang up in the years that followed.

VHS sales exploded in the late '80s and into the '90s, particularly when it came to children's entertainment. There was a point in time when movies could only be seen in a theater and then, later, they could be broadcast on TV. But the viewer really had no control over the situation. With the advent of the VCR, families could be in control of the movies they watched at home for the first time. It was also one heck of a way to keep kids entertained. As a result, the direct-to-video market sprang up and became big business for studios, most of which crafted entire divisions to handle DTV offerings. Disney naturally went all-in on the trend.

Given the success of "The Land Before Time," the Universal brass decided that a sequel would be a good idea, but one made specifically for this emerging market. This would not be a carefully crafted follow-up from Bluth. Rather, it would be a "down and dirty," cheap effort, as Krieger put it in that Syfy piece. He ultimately declined to write the sequel for that reason.

"I would rather be the guy who creates the franchise and steps away than be the guy who cheapens it, banging them out for bucks," Krieger explained.

Universal Cartoon Studios shifted from producing movies for TV in 1993 and began focusing on the home video market. "We're not quite Disney yet," Then-Universal Family Entertainment president Jeff Segel said to Variety in July of '93. "Our home video division looked at the market and recognized it as an important part of the business. This is something we're totally committed to."

It came to pass that "The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure" was the first film produced strictly for the home video market. Released in 1994, it would prove to be just the first of many.

Bluth, Spielberg, and Lucas also weren't involved in any way with "The Great Valley Adventure," or any of the other sequels that cropped up for that matter. Directed by Roy Allen Smith, the first sequel sees Littlefoot and the gang accidentally cause a landslide, leaving an opening for predators to enter their peaceful valley. The follow-up also took a page out of Disney's book and introduced musical numbers to the series. This notion would stick.

Sales figures are difficult to find for home video titles from that time but, needless to say, the experiment was a success. Smith returned to direct another DTV sequel, "The Time of Great Living," which was released a year later. That VHS actually contained a sneak preview of "The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists" prior to the film to help keep the kids hooked. It was a brilliant bit of marketing that worked damn well.

Smith moved on after the fourth film but he was succeeded by Charles Grosvenor, who directed the following eight entries in the franchise, beginning with "The Mysterious Island." Animation work was handled by overseas companies like Wang Film Productions, AKOM, and Rough Draft Studios to keep costs down and maximize profits. All the while, they were still able to secure some impressive stunt casting, with actors like Michael Clark Duncan ("The Green Mile") and Reba McEntire ("Tremors") lending their voices to the series over the years, among others.

All told, there have been 13 sequels, with 2016's "Journey of the Brave" serving as the most recent entry. All of them were released straight to video. Perhaps not surprisingly, Universal stopped making "Land Before Time" sequels right around the time that the Blu-ray/DVD market began to decline rapidly. But for more than 30 years, this was a major money-making franchise for the studio.

There is much to consider when looking back at both "The Land Before Time" as a cherished classic of its era and the franchise as a whole. It's certainly worth ruminating on what Bluth accomplished as the film remains revered to this day by those who grew up with it. Traumatized though they may be by the death of Littlefoot's mom, '80s and '90s kids love this movie. With good reason.

As for the many cheaply made sequels, it's difficult to argue against the business sense it made. Would Universal have made more money with more expensive, theatrical sequels? Honestly, it's hard to imagine that being the case. Would it have been a more satisfying cinematic experience? Possibly. But this is a business after all, albeit one that relies on art to move it forward.

The thing that stands out, particularly now, is the fact that the home video market was once so robust that a major movie studio could justify making 13 of these movies across three different decades. Sure, you can buy the full 14-movie collection on Amazon right now, but DVDs aren't exactly flying off the shelves these days. There are welcome exceptions, such as Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," which has been sold out on Blu-ray and 4K virtually ever since it hit shelves. But that's the exception and certainly not the rule.

Am I saying we should all mourn the loss of less-than-stellar DTV movies aimed at children as pure profit moves? Absolutely not. I am saying that the lack of that market thanks to the sheer dominance of streaming is a shame as it could provide studios with reliable revenue that would allow them to take risks. That might allow them to make the next animated original film like "Land Before Time," rather than just reboot the franchise for a streaming service, as would be more likely to happen in today's marketplace.

Unfortunately, much like the dinosaurs at the center of these stories, that era is extinct.