I know Wikipedia isn't a reliable source of information, but it says it wasn't released on VHS till 1994. Could this be right? That makes no sense....4 years after it's theatrical release? Does anyone remember this?
shareI remember watching the VHS at my grandparents' house when I was six, which was in 1991.
shareSeems to mesh with this site's date.
http://www.tower.com/arachnophobia-jeff-daniels-vhs/wapi/110595157
March 6, 1991 according to them.
I think that's a bit of misinformation, though back in those days it wasn't uncommon to wait a year or two for a film to come out on video. I remember waiting until October 1994 for Jurassic Park to hit VHS, when I had seen it in theaters July of the previous year. That's quite a gap compared to today's three month space between theatrical run and DVD/Blu-Ray release.
shareHell yeah there used to be about a six month gap between a movie being in the cinema and coming out to rent on video. Another six months or so it would come out to buy on video then about 3 or four years later it would be on TV.
shareThat's right. It was at least a year wait for video. That's why so many people copied rented VHS copies.
Every once in a while a movie would come on HBO or Cinemax a little before the VHS was out for purchase, but that was rare. Usually it hit premium channels after VHS then it was another 6 months at least until it got on network or basic cable.
The gap with Jurassic Park was a living hell!!!
I was living in Brazil back than and the movies at the time came in the theaters like 6 month after the release in the USA and tha wating to come in VHS also was more than a year!
It probably wasn't available to own until '94. Unless a movie was huge, gigantic blockbuster back then like Batman or some Disney movie, they were only available to rent.
"He makes me laugh, he'a always humping and pointing at Reese Witherspoon." - rebschucks
yeah, 1991 was still pre movies for sale era for the most part. unless you wanted to pay like $90 like video stores did to get it from a specialty shop...
yeah, $90 for a VHS, that wasn't a typo.
That's correct. I remember when Mr. Holland's Opus came out my mom loved that movie. And we went to a video store to find out when it was coming out and it was only available to rent. The place told her she could buy it right then but it would cost $100! Since the VHS tapes were only available to rental chains at the time or she would have to wait a year for it to be commercially available for purchase. My, how times have changed!
Dragonzord! Mastodon! Pterodactyl! Triceratops! Saber Toothed Tiger! Tyrannosaurus!
Mine was 'Fried Green Tomatoes'- that movie played FOREVER! Saw it in theatres several times, it played for almost a year before coming out on VHS.
shareTrue what others have said. I remember watching Independence Day in August 1996 then waiting until February 1997 to buy the home video on release.
Jurassic Park took forever!
Jurassic Park came out Oct. 4th, 1994. That date is burned in my brain forever because it felt like ages by the time it finally came out.
"He makes me laugh, he'a always humping and pointing at Reese Witherspoon." - rebschucks
Same here. I remember that day all too well. Our local little crumb-bum theater actually played it a few weeks before the VHS release and my family was more than willing to shell out the cash to see it *again* even knowing it would be on video soon.
shareI used to manage a chain of video stores during the 90s. During those years nearly all movies were released on VHS for rental at first. We used to pay between $55 and $80 per tape! That's not a typo. When this particular film came out my biggest store purchased 20 for rental totaling about $1,200. That's why videos used to rent for $3.00 a night. Little by little more videos started coming out at "purchase pricing", where stores and customers could purchase for around $20 retail, $15 wholesale. Then DVDs hit and almost overnight "rental pricing" (the $60 per copy price) was gone.
During the peak years big movies would come out first at rental pricing, then about 6 months to a year they would re-release them at sale pricing so that customers could own it. This is also the reason you see rare tapes going for big bucks on Ebay even today. Because they were never released for sale, only rental copies. On these titles ("Song of the South" was one, still never sold other than early VHS) it was often due to the copyright holder dying before the movies were put out for sale, then they sometimes got caught up in courts while the families of the original copyright holder would try to get the rights. The original "Gone in 60 Seconds" was like this, unavailable for more than 20 years. But I owned a "previously viewed" copy that was originally in a rental store and sold it around 2000 for about $250.
"He's not Judge Judy and executioner!"