‘Thelma & Louise’ Sets a Speed Record

MGM/UA’s “Thelma & Louise,” one of the most popular video rentals of the last few years, is coming to the sales market June 24 at $20 - a surprising development since it premiered on home video Jan. 8.

For nearly all major movies, the time between rental-market debut in the $95-$100 range and the price reduction for the sales market, to $20-$25, is usually nine months to a year.

George Feltenstein, MGM/UA’s vice president of sales and marketing, noted that this is the fastest that one of the company’s titles has moved from video premiere to sales market.

A few other major movies have hit the sales market much faster than usual in the last year. For instance, last week the price of Orion’s “The Silence of the Lambs,” which came to video in late October, dropped to $20, a seven-month turnaround.

Why this rush to reach the sales market?

“It was such an incredibly popular rental title that our research shows people want to own it,” Feltenstein said of “Thelma & Louise.” “One of the trade magazines had a story which said video retailers made more money per copy on this movie than they did on ‘Terminator 2.’ Why wait until fall--for the Christmas shopping season--to drop the price? People want it now.”

MGM/UA shipped a hefty 380,000 copies of “Thelma & Louise” to video outlets. The “road” movie, starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis as women on the lam, was No. 1 on the Billboard rental chart for eight weeks.

Another reason Feltenstein cited for the early sales-market entry is to get a jump on the movie’s July cable premiere. “Traditionally when a movie comes out on cable, its rental market performance drops because people tape it off of TV,” he said. “There’s probably less interest in buying it too.”

In the past, video companies waited nearly a year before price reduction to make sure video retailers had squeezed as much revenue as they could out of the rental cassettes. But the rental market has grown so much in the last five years that retailers can turn a profit much quicker. In many cases, making a fast sales-market premiere makes good financial sense.

Another reason for MGM/UA pushing “Thelma & Louise” so quickly to the sales market is that the home-video market has been booming this year.

“There’s this incredible sales explosion under way that we all want to get in on,” Feltenstein said. “People are buying more and more tapes as all tapes get cheaper. People are getting more into the buying habit. It makes sense to provide movies for this growing market of buyers.

“You won’t see the bulk of the movies making a quick jump to the sales market any time soon. But I do think you’ll see more and more companies doing it. “