For Video Stores, Manely a Good Year : Sales Are Up but Rentals Are Down in a Year Buoyed by Disney's 'Lion King' and 2 Hanks Hits

By DONALD LIEBENSON

Dec. 30, 1995 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Video retailers looking back on 1995 will no doubt raise a glass and toast, “Hanks for the memories,” as two theatrical hits starring popular actor Tom Hanks spiked the video charts. Also this year: A new sales “King” was crowned, children’s programmers courted preschoolers, “Showgirls” danced to a new tune, and video stores turned out to be the one place the O.J. Simpson trial didn’t play.

Overall, it was a very good year for the sell-through market, which increased approximately 19% over last year, and not so good for the rental market, which was down about 9%, according to Alexander & Associates, a New York-based consulting firm that specializes in home entertainment.

The year’s highs and lows:

How do you sell a box of chocolates that has already been consumed by millions? This was Paramount Home Video’s challenge in parlaying “Forrest Gump’s” critical and box-office success to the home video market upon its release in April. But buoyed by that film’s sweep of the top Academy Awards and supported by an aggressive multimillion-dollar campaign, “Forrest Gump” was, as of Dec. 12, the top-renting title of 1995.

“The Lion King,” unleashed on video in February, took less than six days to dethrone “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” as the best-selling video of all time. It was also, according to Alexander & Associates, the second-best renting title of the year.

The No. 10 rental, the remake of “The Little Rascals,” could get pushed off the list by “Pulp Fiction” when the final tallies are in. In September, Buena Vista Home Video reportedly shipped 715,000 copies of the Quentin Tarantino hit to stores, making it “le Big Mac” of rental titles. It broke the shipping record held for four years by “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” How many of these will actually be rented by consumers remains to be seen.

Also not on the list is Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13” because it was released just a little more than a month ago. But within its first two weeks in stores, “Apollo” was the fastest-renting video since Hanks’ other recent hit, “Forrest Gump.”

“Gump,” priced at $22.95 retail, was second only to “The Lion King” on the 1995 bestseller list.

The video success of “Pulp Fiction,” which some might consider the anti-”Gump,” was “a little surprising,” said Bruce Apar, editor of the trade publication Video Business. “Perhaps people embraced it because it is so original, irreverent and entertaining. It is such a relief to see something apart from the routine comedy or action adventure.”

That may also be a reason why so-called art-house--or foreign and independent--films found more acceptance in video stores this year. Labels such as rookie of the year Hallmark Home Entertainment and Miramax Home Entertainment brought aggressive marketing to bear on such titles as “Eat Drink Man Woman,” “The Madness of King George,” “Red” and “Clerks.”

“You can more effectively target-market these films on video than you can theatrically, where they receive limited screen time,” Apar said. “From specialty video stores to direct response, you have months to reach audiences who will be more conducive to these movies.”

Another burgeoning niche market was video programming designed for preschoolers. Major and independent studios fostered brand-name and franchise recognition: “The Adventures of Timmy the Tooth” on MCA/Universal Home Video, the “Bright Beginnings” collection from Disney, “Real Wheels” on WarnerVision, “The Busy World of Richard Scarry” on PolyGram Video, “Schoolhouse Rock” on Paramount Home Video and the “Nick Jr.” label distributed by Sony Wonder.

While family films continue to drive the sell-through market, this year saw the release of more adult-oriented, direct-to-sell-through titles. “The Mask,” “Forrest Gump” and “Apollo 13,” which only a few years ago would probably have been released as rental titles, were introduced on video for less than $25 each. Further, renters such as “Little Women” and “Legends of the Fall” were re-priced for sell-through only months after their initial release.

Studio vaults yielded some of the year’s most surprising success stories. The Force continues to be with the “Star Wars” trilogy, which has sold more than 16 million copies in Fox Video’s remastered and repackaged editions. The re-release of the James Bond collection is also a top-seller.

“This belies the notion that people don’t want to watch movies more than once,” Apar said. “The ‘Trilogy’ has been on television, it has been on video before, and it still sold that many copies.”

This may be the impetus for studios to tap into their archives on a much broader scale in 1996 and release more upscale versions of classic films with such value-added treats as bonus footage, digital remastering or deluxe packaging, said Peter Busch, vice president of divisional merchandise for the Musicland Group, which owns the sell-through chain Suncoast Motion Picture Co.

There is emerging, he noted, a collector’s market for “true aficionados” who supported letterboxed versions of such films as “Apollo 13” and commemorative anniversary editions of “Dr. Zhivago” and “Jaws.”

“Letterbox was previously un-releasable,” Busch said, “but more consumers are sending a message loud and clear that given a choice, a certain percentage wants that movie in letterbox. We’re working with the studios to guide them into certain niches we might think appropriate based on our experience. For example, the three ‘Batman’ films have never been available in letterbox. We’re asking the studios why not, and that may be one of the things we might look forward to in 1996.”

One indication of the video industry’s clout in Hollywood concerns one of the year’s most infamous films, “Showgirls.” To accommodate major chains with policies against stocking films rated NC-17, MGM/UA Home Video, with the cooperation of director Paul Verhoeven, has created an R-rated version of the film that will be released Tuesday for the rental market. The original theatrical version will also be available.

While “Showgirls” may be welcomed by some on video, O.J. Simpson, or at least the rush of videos chronicling his trial, was not. Perhaps because of the omnipresent coverage of the case or the controversy surrounding the verdict, retailers and the consumers decided that such “instant videos” as “California vs. O.J. Simpson: The Opening Arguments, Vol. 1,” “The Defense” and “Closing Statements & Verdict” just didn’t fit.

“O.J. Simpson: Minimum Maintenance Fitness for Men,” outtakes from which figured in the prosecution’s case against Simpson, continues to haunt the former defendant. Allworks Enterprises Inc., which acquired the rights to the video from Playboy, filed a breach-of-contract suit, claiming that Simpson has declined to promote it.

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Top Rentals of ’95

1. “Forrest Gump”

2. “The Lion King”

3. “True Lies”

4. “The Mask”

5. “Speed” (Rrleased Nov., 1994)

6. “Dumb and Dumber”

7. “The Shawshank Redemption”

8. “The Santa Clause”

9. “Pulp Fiction”

10. “Legends of the Fall”