{"id":33661,"date":"2021-07-21T07:16:55","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T13:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=33661"},"modified":"2021-07-21T07:17:44","modified_gmt":"2021-07-21T13:17:44","slug":"33661","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=33661","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting The Past&#8230;Seeing The Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0-785x440.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"785\" height=\"440\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-33662\" \nIn the mid-eighties, I worked selling VHS tapes to rental stores. I also had the additional job of trying to establish a business selling low-cost tapes. It was interesting that the tapes sold on average from $49.00 to $85.00 if it was intended for rental; if they wanted the tape to sell in a retail environment, it was priced at $14.95. The cost to produce each copy was about $3. At 3 bucks apiece, the money made on VHS was huge, on average there was anywhere between $30 to $56 profit, after taking into account the wholesale markup. I don\u2019t know about you, but for me, that is solid money.\n\nHere is what was interesting, the executives in Hollywood never believed in the video store rental business. A brilliant salesman named Andre Blay went and licensed a group of titles from pre-Murdoch Fox and created MAGNETIC HOME VIDEO. George Atkinson, in December 1977, spent approximately $3000 to buy one Betamax and one VHS copy of each of the 50 available movie titles from Andre Blay\u2019s Magnetic Video, prior to George coming on the scene these videos were being sold to the public by direct mail. He announced the availability of the videos for rent in the sports section of a Los Angeles newspaper, George was a regular P.T. Barnum, he advertised his store prior to even owning any videos. Atkinson turned his shop into the first professionally managed video rental store and renamed it Video Station, a 600 square foot storefront on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. In order to raise needed funds, Atkinson charged $50 for an \"annual membership\" and $100 for a \"lifetime membership,\" which provided the opportunity to rent the videos for $10 a day.\n\n Atkinson was soon threatened with a lawsuit for renting the videos, but discovered that U.S. copyright law gave him the right to rent and re-sell videos he owned. George passed away in 2005. I knew him and he was to say the least, a character. Andre Blay ran his operation out of Farmington Michigan and George ran a small frontage on Wilshire. On their shoulders solely lay the video revolution.\n\nThe idea exploded like wildfire with companies like Vestron, Blockbuster, Embassy exploding onto the scene. The studios stared like a deer in the headlights at all the economic activity and slowly pounced on taking over the VHS business. They started to refuse to license further movies and created their own label, usually engaging former record company executives to build the market. VHS arrived and became analog kudzu in the business of entertainment.\n\n One of the byproducts of the VHS revolution was the liberation of Iron Curtain countries. For example, Romania was under the cruel thumb of the Communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. All news and all media were controlled by the regime. Romania\u2019s secret police used torture and deep intimidation to extinguish dissent in any form and any entertainment from other countries was completely censored before presenting it to the beleaguered citizens of Romania.\n\n VHS tapes and VCRs changed all this. A black market ring held screenings in apartments charging large sums of money to watch Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, and Jean-Claude Van Damme fight for truth, justice, and the American way. For the first time in their lives, people saw the world from outside the Iron Curtain and they wanted change. These movie screenings started planting seeds of unrest that lit the fires of revolution that overthrew the regime in 1989. VHS 1, Commies O.\n\n What is always interesting is how history repeats itself. Fast forward to today. The studio no longer exists. Movies are in the hand of very large vertically integrated media behemoths. One of the things that were often spoken when VHS, then DVD came on the scene, is that a theatrical release was really one big commercial for a VHS or DVD release. There was a natural flow between the two mediums of release. In the video rental business, we knew that when Rambo 3 was released it would rent like crazy for 30 days, then drop off to nothing. There was a very quick saturation for a major theatrical release. Chopping Mall, A Roger Corman movie, and a solid B offering would rent for about six months on a consistent basis. Theatrical melded into video rental and it was a natural symbiosis, instead of decreasing the box office, the proper windowing that was in place seemed to actually elevate each market.\n\n In 1985, it was decided that in the future the movie studios could have a direct relationship with the consumer and the studios at the time wanted to promote that direct relationship with the consumer. The studio began to plan and Paramount led with the video release of Top Gun.\n\nWith the aim of cutting out the video rental store, Top Gun was the first new-release blockbuster on videocassette to be priced as low as $26.95 and, backed by a massive $8 million marketing campaign, including a Top Gun-themed snazzy Diet Pepsi commercial, the advance demand was such that the film became the best-selling VHS in the industry's history on pre-orders alone, with over 1.9 million units ordered before its launch on March 10, 1987. It eventually sold a record 2.9 million units.\n\nTop Gun was sold in drug stores, grocery stores, and in toy stores. The goal was to control and to take away industry inertia from the video store.\n\n I am going to make the statement that the past is now again prologue and the theatrical release of the feature-length motion picture is really in the eyes of the studio, an advertisement for a streaming release. It is interesting that the media behemoths have the business of theatrical exhibition clearly in their sights. It is also clear that the theatrical market has evolved from a position of primacy to a position of servitude.\n\n The theater owners are unwittingly providing the platform to promote streaming. Theatrical releases and the decision on which titles to release or not release on a theatrical platform will be predicated on what\u2019s good for streaming with an end game of weaning consumers away from going to the movies. The mega-media companies have become literally the fox in the henhouse.\n\nNATO released a statement this week placing firm blame on the low after releases grosses for \u201cBlack Widow\u201d on PVOD. Some good points were made, but as usually NATO really did not get it, and by placing all the blame on PVOD kind of fell on their own sword. You can blame that the PVOD release as the sole reason for the deep decline in numbers for \u201cBlack Widow\u201d. The real issue is that the ecosystem is severely broken, exhibition including NATO is not making a strong enough argument for the primacy of theaters, the studios are actually frightened that the shifting is going to continue and are holding close, the various streaming models. It is time for some frank conversation. It rea;;y is about community and the experience.\n\n Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to the \u201980s classic Top Gun starring Tom Cruise, after a prolonged series of delays will now premiere on November 19th. It will stream on Paramount+ 45 days later.\n\n\n<\/p srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0-785x440.jpeg 785w, https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0-300x168.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0-768x431.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0.jpeg 1100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 785px) 100vw, 785px\" \/>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movie-news","wpcat-1-id"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0.jpeg",1100,617,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0-300x300.jpeg",300,300,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0-300x168.jpeg",300,168,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0-768x431.jpeg",768,431,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0-785x440.jpeg",785,440,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0.jpeg",1100,617,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0.jpeg",1100,617,false],"gridflex-1422w-autoh-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0.jpeg",1100,617,false],"gridflex-1074w-autoh-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0.jpeg",1074,602,false],"gridflex-360w-300h-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/topgun_0.jpeg",360,202,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin1","author_link":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33661"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33664,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33661\/revisions\/33664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}