Content area
Full Text
The nation's video retailers have a nickname for director Steven Spielberg-Scrooge.
They see him as the villain who's keeping them from enjoying the merriest of Christmases. To a video retailer, a Merry Christmas means stores full of well-heeled customers buying videocassettes. One event that would generate a mad rush-the biggest ever-to video stores in December would be the videocassette release of Spielberg's "E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial."
According to one insider, the release date-on MCA Home Video-and the price are totally up to Spielberg. Retailers were hoping the 1982 movie would be available this Christmas but "Scrooge" Spielberg, so far, hasn't given the OK.
What's Spielberg waiting for? According to the source, he's hesitant about releasing "E.T." on cassette because he feels it won't play well on TV screens. That's a weak arguement. "E.T." works on sentiment, not elaborate special effects. If TV is good enough for a special effects extravaganza like "Star Wars," it's certainly good enough for that little green creature.
Meir Hed, who co-owns the Videotheque stores in Westwood and Beverly Hills, contends that "E.T." is finished as a blockbuster theatrical attraction-"It did OK this last release (about $35 million) but the next time it'll be much less"-but would generate whopping profits as a cassette.
"If `E.T.' came out about Dec. 15, it would likely be an incredible hit," Hed explained. "In six months, it could sell 2 million copies and be the biggest videocassette in history. At $29.95, that would mean about $28 million profit."
Hed made another point: "There are many bootleg copies of `E.T.' around. The quality of these copies isn't very good. If Spielberg is worried about people seeing `E.T.' under inadequate conditions, the existence of those bootleg copies must really bother him....