Looking for last minute specials at Amazon.com and was intrigued to stumble across a promotion they’re running where we, the customer, can vote on the best cover art for the new special edition DVD (and Blu-Ray) release of the brilliant Terry Gilliam / Handmade Films movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
Here are the three choices:

(you can vote by going here: vote for your favorite!)
I think this is a very cool promotion because it encourages customers to engage, to have a commitment to the packaging and release of a favorite older film (Munchausen was originally released in 1988). What they miss, however, is that when you’ve voted and are seeing the results, they should have a virtual coupon that would let you receive an instant few dollars off the pre-purchase of the DVD when released.
Here’s another idea, though, one for the next release of a much-loved classic: why not invite amateur film critics to submit their own commentary on a film, and the one that’s most interesting / insightful would be included in the official release as a commentary track? It could be re-recorded in a professional sound studio (or even re-voiced if the commentator just doesn’t have a voice “made for radio”)
What other ways can you imagine that a movie production company and/or distributor could engage viewers and help convert them into customers? Certainly most of the competitions that modern movies are trying are tedious and boring (cf. National Treasure: Book of Secrets), but then again, most movies suffer from the very same problems, don’t they? 🙂
For me, a copy of Baron Munchausen on Blu-Ray? Sounds like a five-star winner to me, a perfect match of complicated and intriguing visuals and a high-def video and audio format for home theater setups.