The Weinstein Companies "Leap!" WAS Supposed to be in 3D!

I made a comment in a previous post that I was under the impression that The Weinstein Companies release of "Leap!" was going to be released in 3D, but must have been mistaken because when it finally did come out there was no such release available.  Upon further investigation, it turns out there WAS a 3D version made available internationally, and even one that is made for American audiences!  In fact, a random family owned theater in Oklahoma called Heritage Oaks Theater is showing it in 3D.  Likewise, Movie Tickets.com has a 3D version listed for selling tickets, which means it was intended for theatrical release in the states.  So what happened?  Honestly, it probably just has to do with The Weinstein Company themselves, who have historically had a TERRIBLE track record for releasing animated movies in the states!

While at Miramax, Harvey Weinstein botched the releases of Hayao Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" and two Pokémon movies.  A couple years ago he had "Underdogs" scheduled to be released in theaters (with the 3D version clearly on display with the poster) before the release was pulled altogether in favor of a direct-to-Netflix release (having seen it, this was a shame, as the movie was actually pretty good).  The only real success the studio has had in the field of animation was with "Hoodwinked" of all things.  Also, "Leap!" suffers from poor dubbing and an updated soundtrack.  Editing foreign films for an American audience is something Weinstein has also been known for (I had to suffer through a botched English dub of "Shaolin Soccer" many years ago), so, in some ways, losing the 3D version in the states isn't even the worst thing to happen.

The movie can be purchased in 3D from both Germany and Spain.  Neither disk is region free, but there are English versions on both of them.  I have no idea if its the updated dub or a more faithful dub though.  I think...I'm going to have to get a region free BluRay 3D player and start importing some of these movies and reviewing them for you guys.  That might have to be the next evolution for this site.  It's a direction I wanted to avoid, as having access to imports I feared would have lessoned my fight to bring the 3D versions to America, but with us getting fewer and fewer releases, American audiences are having little choice but to import these days, so I should probably be writing about what you can expect should you decide to do this.  Plus...it would be nice to see what "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2" looks like in 3D.  In the meantime, if you are one of the few who have been able to experience "Leap!" in 3D in the theaters, let us know what it's like!