VSDA ‘99  -  Saturday, July 10

Here’s the last part of this year’s VSDA report. We have some more information for you, mostly details on some upcoming releases.

Emmerich and some additional nine minutes of footage. Wim Wender’s Buena Vista Social Club will see release with a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack and a commentary track by director Wim Wenders. Finally it seems as if Artisan is getting The Stand of the ground in a special edition featuring a commentary track by Stephen King. Boy, it’s got to be incredibly hard to talk through the entire length of that particular movie all by yourself, so we’re not sure how that’ll turn out. Considering that the film is paralyzingly slow in its story development, we are really curios to find out about that.

YORK ENTERTAINMENT
Rather new independent DVD publisher York Entertainment has a few titles in the making, like James Dean: Live Fast, Die Young starring Casper Van Dien, and An American Affair, both of which will be released on July 27. On August 24 they will then extend their catalog with two more titles, the mysteryious thriller Random Encounter and the polit-thriller Act Of War.

WARNER HOME VIDEO
One of Warner’s highlights at the show was the re-issue of The Wizard Of Oz, now that Warner has acquired the rights to this and many other films from MGM. A 60^th Anniversary Special Edition is currently in the making and will hit the streets on VHS and DVD on October 19. As in various cases before, Warner is adding material to the DVD that will not be available on the VHS version of the film to help make the DVD more attractive to consumers. The DVD will contain the digitally restored film with a new 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, as well as the original mono soundtrack. Supplements are manifold, such as a documentary hosted

UNIVERSAL HOME VIDEO
Once again back to Universal we found out that the company is now adding some diversity to its catalog through the acquisition of some specialty titles from Polygram. On August 31, Universal will re-release Cats, the long-running Broadway musical on DVD for $29.98. After that release, we will also see re-releases of Michael Flatley: Lord Of The Dance and Rowan Atkinson: Best Beans Of Mr. Bean later this year through Universal Home Video.

STERLING HOME ENTERTAINMENT
This independent publisher supreme has just given us an outlook on some if the films to come until the end of the year. Although no release dates are available yet, here’s a list of some of the titles in preparation for release. Supreme Sanction, Southie, Free Money, Urban Menace, Late Last Night, New Blood, The Highway Man and The Confession.

Especially exciting looking are Busted, a ghetto-drama starring David Bowie, the horror film Modern Vampires, starring Casper Van Dien and Rod Steiger, and Ice-T’s Wrecking Crew. We will bring you more on these releases when more details become available.

SIMITAR ENTERTAINMENT
Okay folks, here comes what has to be considered the ultimate in specialty release, and quite frankly I am not sure how that fits the DVD demographics - but we’ll see. Simitar is releasing a six disc collection called Game Hunting in October. Ducks And Fowl, Bowhunter, Gobblers, The Kill, Whitetail and Trophy Hunting are not the names of newly-discovered Marx Brothers films, but indeed, some serious hunting videos hosted by Dave Embry. The DVDs of this collection will also contain interactive hunting games… Deer Hunter anyone?
As we had revealed last week in our release announcements, Simitar is also releasing a six disc box set for the classic Toho Godzilla movies, featuring five of the films and a separate disc called The Art Of Illusion, and a six disc box set with early Jackie Chan films, including Fearless Hyena, Spiritual Kung Fu, New Fist Of Fury, Fearless Hyena II, Half A Loaf Of Kung Fu and To Kill With Intrigue. All these titles have been repackaged, and are coming in Amaray keepcases. Later this year we will laso see box sets called Planes, Trains & Machines, Future Sight, Outdoor Adventure and Good Housekeeping.

That’s it from this year’s VSDA show. As you can certainly tell from our coverage not very much really exciting news came up. We got some vague outlooks on a number of releases loosely slated until the end of the year, sprinkled with titles we’re not allowed to mention yet. On the other hand, there has also been a large number of warmed up announcements for titles that we had covered and listed in our release schedules weeks and months ago, like Fox’s, Paramount’s or New Line’s fall titles, which is a tad disappointing. Please check our “Film Vault” for the details on all those titles while we insert all the new titles in the database for a future update. No publisher really unveiled a spectacular release that had been held in the dark until now, and no publisher was really willing to put the cards on the table as to what’s coming next. I guess it’s just too hard to break with well-worn routines.

One truly positive thing we took away from the show however is the feeling that DVD has exceeded everyone’s expectations. While last year we were still hearing comments like “DVD is not a real business and not worth dealing with”, this year it was obvious that some publishers have clearly missed the signs of the times. DVD was everywhere and it was extremely satisfying to see. Even small publishers add DVD to their line-ups and although we were unable to cover them all here, we will keep an eye on them in the future. This was the show of DVD and for the first time VHS was playing the second violin. Hardly any major studio had serious VHS announcements of exhibits and instead everything on this show was about DVD. The executives at Fox may still be unwilling to believe that DVD will be the future of home video and that some phantom digital medium will appear out of the blue to roll up the market by storm. Fact of the matter is that DVD is rolling in big time and there will be no extra stop for latecomers! The longer these people hesitate and deliberate, the more they will lose touch with their customers and the rapidly changing market.

Another trend was obvious, especially in the seminars and panels that accompanied the show. The Internet and E-Commerce is on everyone’s mind. The VSDA is encouraging and helping retailers to go online to expand their businesses to the online community. Not necessarily in the big league, but even on a small local scale, retailers can increase their catchment area and make their businesses more attractive. Earthlink even gives small retailers incentives to take their businesses online.

We will give you more of our thoughts on the state of the industry, especially in regards to what we saw at the show in an upcoming “Breaking The silence” column, so stay tuned! For now, that’s the wrap-up for the show. We hope we have been able to bring you interesting coverage and some of the excitement of the show, and we hope you enjoyed our report. Until next year’s convention, here are some more pictures to give you an impression of everything going on during the past days.

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