Kung Fu Panda kicks off a non-Tuesday trend

Eagle Eye will be available Saturday, Dec. 27

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 11/18/2008

NOV. 18 | DVD street dates are becoming a moving target in the fourth quarter, with Paramount Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Anchor Bay Entertainment all bowing titles outside of the traditional Tuesday frame.

Paramount has assigned Sunday, Dec. 28, as the street date for Eagle Eye, Ghost Town and The Duchess, but will allow stores to shelve the titles for sale and rental as early as Saturday, Dec. 27, at 12:01 a.m., according to a studio e-mail to retailers obtained by VB.

This is similar to the studio’s strategy for Kung Fu Panda, which had an official street date of Sunday, Nov. 9, although retailers put it on sale a day earlier.

Separately, Sony’s The House Bunny and Anchor Bay’s Traitor are both now set for Friday, Dec. 19, release. For some time, retailers originally were expecting House Bunny on Tuesday, Dec. 23.

And Warner Home Video first announced a Dec. 23 date for The Women but has since set it for an earlier Sunday, Dec. 21, release. The studio did not respond to requests for comment.

The House Bunny and Traitor weekend premieres have been confirmed by their respective studios. Paramount has not yet formally announced street dates for Eagle Eye, Ghost Town and Duchess.

Many retailers succeeded with Paramount’s recent alterna-date launch for Kung Fu Panda on Saturday, Nov. 8. But several store managers said they are concerned that these increasing cases of non-Tuesday bows may confuse consumers. Also, there is worry that a deteriorating Tuesday standard will encourage retailers to break street date, since it’s difficult to police a roving kick-off period.

“Everyone will just have their own street date,” said Tom Paine, owner of Redmond, Wash., chain DVD Now. “And if stores have their own dates, it will just be too chaotic.”

Paine’s customers, trained on Tuesday bows, did have problems with Kung Fu Panda’s Saturday launch.

“One customer came in on Wednesday, insisting the movie had been out the day before,” said Paine. “But the customer was in that Wednesday before the weekend [of its release].”

Kirk Kirkpatrick, VP at wholesaler WaxWorks VideoWorks, added, “The value of a standard street date for all studios is immeasurable. The Tuesday date allows everyone to benefit: studios can plan, distributors can ship, retailers can consolidate marketing and consumers know when the product is available.”

Some retailers said they understand the benefits of a shift away from Tuesday, including a studio’s desire to emphasize relatively under-the-radar titles.

Duchess, Ghost Town and Traitor are considered moderate theatrical performers, grossing between $10 million and $25 million each at the box office. However, House Bunny and Eagle Eye were hits, at about $50 million and $100 million, respectively.

“With Kung Fu Panda being successful, I see the benefit of releasing other titles this way,” said John Sanders, product operations manager at Kansas Blockbuster franchisee Major Video. “We’ll see how these do on the weekend. And maybe if it can work with a really big movie, it might work for a second-tier movie.”

There also is the thought that studios want to give these titles an extra marketing boost as newspaper circulars will advertise them at the moment they are available on shelves. Typically such Sunday ads notify consumers about upcoming Tuesday DVD bows.

Paramount’s rules surrounding the Dec. 28 street for Eagle Eye, Ghost Town and The Duchess state that stores can put the titles on shelves on Dec. 27 at 12:01 a.m., but advertising must adhere to the Sunday 28 date, according to the e-mail.

“Everyone in the industry knows that Tuesday is the street date for new releases, and now we’re getting into different days [for one title]” said one retail source. “Saturday, Sunday—that could create more street date violations. If it’s 12:01 [a.m.] on Saturday, what will stop people from putting it out Friday?”

Mark Steiner, buyer at Seattle’s Scarecrow Video, said he hopes studios keep consumers in mind when planning non-traditional weekend DVD launches.

“It seems really haphazard,” said Steiner. “In the past, there might be one huge title that would come out [on an unusual day] but you have some coming Friday, some coming Saturday, and people are still going to stores on Tuesday mornings. The more you mix it up, the more consumers are getting confused.”