The ‘King’s’ $450-Million Challenge to ‘Gump’ : Video: The Disney film becomes No. 1 in sales in less than two weeks. It could bode well for Paramount’s Academy Award nominee, which arrives in stores on April 28.

Simba’s domain now truly extends “everywhere the light touches,” to the realm of home video. After less than two weeks, “The Lion King” has dethroned another Disney film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” as the current best-selling video of all time.

The numbers--more than 26 million copies sold--surprised even Disney. “We knew it was going to be big,” said Ann Daly, president of Buena Vista Home Video. “In terms of consumer purchase intent, our research was tracking higher than any other movie we had ever seen, but that first week was astonishing.”

It took less than six days for “The Lion King” to generate about $350 million at retail, which surpassed the film’s domestic theatrical box office. It’s now up to $450 million. All of that was also enough time to handily overtake “Snow White,” which took three weeks to sell 17 million copies.

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All of this is, of course, good news for video retailers, but “The Lion King’s” roar is the first of a one-two video-video punch. Marketing has already started for the highly anticipated video release next month of “Forrest Gump,” which Paramount Home Video is also pricing at $22.95 suggested retail for the sale market.

The back-to-back release of two such titanic titles--the top two box-office hits of 1994 and the fourth and fifth biggest films of all time--is unprecedented. Not even the pitched showdown between “Snow White” and “Jurassic Park,” both of which were released on video last October, compares.

It takes the likes of a “King” and “Gump” to lure back customers whose attentions of late have been focused elsewhere. “What the O.J. Simpson trial has taken away from video retailers, ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Forrest Gump’ will bring back,” said Marlene Allen, owner of Video Vault, a seven-store chain in Southern California.

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Disney and Paramount are grandly trumpeting these releases as events and backing them with the most extensive (and expensive) marketing and ad campaigns in the studios’ histories. One might think that the title recognition both films enjoy makes this unnecessary. One would be wrong.

“The (“Lion King”) marketing campaign is all about getting people reconnected to the movie,” Daly said. “Every release has its finite length of peak consumer interest. As an organization, we have tried to be very agile to capture the moment. We’ve always had a high purchase intent for our sell-through product. To get consumers to follow through on that intent is the difference between an OK job and a great job.”

The job did not end when “The Lion King” became available. It was only beginning. Marketing, sales and distribution are working in consort on what Daly called “a moment-by-moment focus,” double-checking to see if the stock has been shipped to the right locations and is displayed properly, determining what outlets are running low and adjusting the advertising based on consumer feedback.

In designating “Forrest Gump” a sell-through title, Paramount endeavors to make an impact in a consumer market dominated both by family films and by Disney. Of the top 10 videos released directly to sell-through, six are Disneys, according to the trade publication Video Store magazine. The rankings, before “Lion King”: “Snow White,” “Aladdin,” “Jurassic Park,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Batman,” “Fantasia,” “101 Dalmatians,” “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Pinocchio.”

Despite its critical and box-office success, “Gump,” which views three decades in the life of America through the eyes of its simple-hearted title character, defies easy categorization usually associated with videos people choose to own rather than rent.

But “Gump” shares with “King” many characteristics that bode well for video sales success. Both are films with which audiences have deep emotional attachments. Most important, from a retailer’s standpoint, they have that special something called “repeatability.”

“ ‘Forrest Gump’ is a forever movie,” said Allen, who plans to order in excess of 100 copies per store as she did with “The Lion King.” “It is a movie that people saw more than once in the theaters and will want to watch again and again on video.”

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“The Lion King” may too be a forever movie, but like previous Disney animated classics, it will only be available on video for a limited time. It will remain in circulation through Christmas ‘95, Daly said.

Paramount has “significant expectations” for “Gump,” said Eric Doctorow, Paramount’s president of worldwide video. It is expected to at least double the studio’s bestsellers “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Wayne’s World,” both of which have sold in excess of 5 million copes.

“The challenge is to maximize ‘Forrest Gump’s’ potential in the marketplace given the competitiveness of the business and the competition for the consumers’ time and attention,” he said.

Disney and Paramount are taking slightly different routes to achieve their sales goals. Print and broadcasting are primary components of each campaign. Both films enjoy the tangential publicity benefits of best-selling soundtrack albums, Golden Globe and People’s Choice Awards and Academy Award nominations. “Gump’s” April 28 release allows for maximum exposure following the film’s theatrical re-release last February and what is expected to be a big night at the Oscars on March 27.

But while Disney has set up cross-promotional tie-ins with Pillsbury, Mattel, Ralston Foods and Burger King, “Gump” will run alone. What, no box of chocolates?

“An awful lot of opportunities came our way,” Doctorow said, “but the right one was elusive. Because this film was such an emotional event for so many people, there are certain responsibilities to market it in such a way as to speak to its specialness. Doing a tie-in just to do one wouldn’t make sense.”

With “King” doing the lion’s share of business, there are signs that both will prosper further in the video jungle. Some video stores are cross-promoting both titles to solicit pre-orders, with caricatures of Forrest Gump advising people to buy “The Lion King” and vice versa. That’s what retailers call the circle of business life.