In 1984, before the film's completion, Carole MacGillvray offered
The Care Bears Movie for consideration to major studios in the US; founder
Samuel Goldwyn Jr. remarked: "Having my [two] children, I know these bears are stars, too." The film's advertising budget was US$4 million;
Variety reported that "the beneficiaries of [its] merchandising tie-ins have earmarked [the remaining] $20,000,000 to promo Care Bear products in step with the film's release". both were reissued in October 1985 by
Children's 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. 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. 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." The film opened on March 29, 1985, in the United States and Canada, as Nelvana's first widely released feature. playing primarily at matinees and early evening showings. At the time, the North American film industry was bereft of children's and family fare; with
The Care Bears Movie, Hirsh said, "There's such a large audience for a film that appeals primarily to 6-year-olds." The film made an appearance at the USA Film Festival in Dallas, Texas, during its release. When shown in theatres, the feature was immediately followed by Nelvana's TV special,
Strawberry Shortcake Meets the Berrykins. It was directed by Laura Shepherd and produced by Nelvana's founders along with Lenora Hume. The story involves Strawberry Shortcake and a tiny group of creatures called the Berrykins as they work to clear their home of Strawberryland of the "world's favourite perfume", a pungent odour which was unleashed from a purple cloud. LBS Communications syndicated it on US television around the time of
The Care Bears Movies theatrical tenure; a video release from
Family Home Entertainment soon followed.
The Care Bears Movie ranked fourth at the North American box office on its first two weekends, grossing US$3.7 million and US$3.2 million respectively. After three months, it grossed about US$23 million in the United States, it brought in US$9,435,000 in rentals for the Goldwyn company. In Canada, the film was released by
Astral Films It was the year's highest-grossing release in that market, followed by Disney's
One Magic Christmas and a Quebec production called
The Alley Cat (Le Matou). As a result,
The Care Bears Movies performance alarmed animators at the Disney Studios;
Don Bluth, a former recruit, dismissed the "public taste" factor that it demonstrated. Another animator,
Ron Clements, later reflected on this: "Everyone was kind of scared about the future of Disney animation. It wasn't a good time. It was really a terrible time." This sentiment was echoed in
Waking Sleeping Beauty, Disney's 2010 documentary on the revival of its animation unit. While comparing
The Black Cauldron with
The Care Bears Movie, Eleanor Ringel of
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution singled out the "putrid
pastels" of Nelvana's production and commented that they "don't even deserve to be mentioned in the same review." Months afterward, a re-issue of Disney's
One Hundred and One Dalmatians surpassed both
The Care Bears Movie and
The Black Cauldron, with over US$30 million in sales. Sometime after the film's release,
Vestron Video picked up the video rights to
The Care Bears Movie for US$1.8 million. It was released in the United States on July 10, 1985, in
VHS and
Betamax formats. On August 10, 1985, it debuted in 26th place on
Billboard's
Top Videocassette Rentals chart. It ranked fourth on the first edition of the magazine's Top Kid Video chart (on October 5). It was tracked by
Video Insiders children's chart (on August 30, 1985), as one of five toy-related titles on tape (along with two compilations of
Hasbro's
Transformers series; another with
Hallmark Cards'
Rainbow Brite; and the last with Strawberry Shortcake). In 1990,
Video Treasures reissued it on videocassette; on October 10, 1995,
Hallmark Home Entertainment published another VHS edition as part of a six-title package from Goldwyn and Britain's
Rank Organisation. On September 5, 2000,
MGM Home Entertainment re-released the film on VHS under the MGM Family Entertainment label; the DVD edition premiered on August 6, 2002, and was packaged with the 1978 British family film
The Water Babies. In 2003, the film was inducted into the MGM Kids line. In honour of the Care Bears' 25th anniversary, another DVD edition of the film was released on March 20, 2007, with restored picture quality; it contained the franchise's second
Atkinson Film-Arts special,
The Care Bears Battle the Freeze Machine, as an extra. American Greetings launched an official anniversary website and a
Dodge Grand Caravan giveaway as part of the proceedings. By 2007, home video sales of
The Care Bears Movie totaled over five million units. It was later re-released by
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on DVD on March 5, 2013. To date, this is the only theatrical
Care Bears movie from the 1980s to be known for being successfully reissued, outselling
A New Generation, which had not been reissued after the 2003 DVD release.
The Care Bears Movie was scheduled to premiere on the US premium television network,
Disney Channel, on June 28, 1986, but did so one month in advance. In September 1987, the film made its terrestrial broadcast premiere on the
ABC network's Saturday morning schedule. It also aired on
American Movie Classics on July 7, 1991, and on
Showtime and
The Movie Channel in the 2000s. The film aired on
Starz Entertainment's
Encore channel in September 2007, as part of its "Big '80s" Labour Day marathon, chronicling various releases from that decade. It was among the first films shown on Canada's
Moviepix channel in October 1994.
International Amid the US and Canadian success of
The Care Bears Movie, Goldwyn took the film to the 38th edition of the
Cannes Film Festival, where it was highly received; a group of costumed Care Bears strolled along the
Croisette to promote the picture. Among its international distributors was Germany's Filmwelt, which released it on March 20, 1986, under the title
Der Glücksbärchi Film. It sold 538,487 tickets in that territory, placing 47th among new releases, and grossed over
DM4,013,000 (
€2,051,600; US$2,868,000). The film was released on VHS in October 1986 by the local division of
CBS/Fox Video, and aired on national broadcaster
ARD during the 1988 Christmas season. in August 1985, and did well in matinee-only engagements; It was also released in Australia on December 12, 1985. In February 1986, the film was released by France's
Artédis under the franchise name
Les Bisounours; On July 21, 1986, the Bermudez de Castro company opened the film in Madrid, Spain, as
Los osos amorosos; it grossed over 23,728,000
Pts (
€142,606; US$199,500) from 93,294 admissions. Among that country's
Catalan speakers, it is known as
Els Óssos Amorosos. The film was released in Czechoslovakia by Ústřední půjčovna filmů on December 1, 1988, as
Starostliví medvídci. It was advertised in Italy as
Orsetti del cuore, and in Poland as
Opowieść o Troskliwych Misiach. In Mexico,
The Care Bears Movie was released on April 24, 1986, as
Los ositos cariñositos. In Brazil, the film was promoted as
As novas aventuras dos ursinhos carinhosos. Television airings occurred on Australia's
Nine Network in 1987, Philippines'
ABS-CBN in December 1992, and Malaysia's
TV2 (in August 1993) and
Disney Channel in April 2002.
Aftermath As opposed to
Rock & Rule (which Nelvana owned outright), the characters in
The Care Bears Movie were the property of American Greetings, who paid Nelvana a service fee to work on the film. Nelvana, however, hardly received any profits from the production; this caused its founders to express regret about the situation. In
The Nelvana Story, Patrick Loubert explained the
catch-22 that they would face numerous times in the years to come: "We could have waived our fee and taken a big piece of the film. We were offered that deal. But if we had waived the fee, we couldn't have made the payroll. Once the picture was hugely successful, we thought we should have waived the fee. But we couldn't have." At the time of production, Nelvana had begun embarking on service work that other companies provided them, not only to help ease the debts the studio incurred after
Rock & Rule, but also because it proved profitable in due time. By 1989,
The Care Bears Movie made over US$34 million worldwide, according to ''
Maclean's'' magazine; and the highest grossing animated film of 1985. It also became the highest-grossing animated film not produced by the Disney company, As of 2023, that title is held by
Illumination Entertainment and
Nintendo's
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), with US$1.288 billion. The film virtually saved a fledgling Nelvana from going out of business, and was the company's highest-grossing venture. It is also among the highest-grossing releases from either incarnation of Samuel Goldwyn. ==Reception and legacy==