DVD releases draft on summer box-office

Five different ways to take Indy home

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 4/24/2008

APRIL 24 | The first wave of big summer films will wash over theaters in May, and video retailers have ample opportunity to ride it with DVD releases tied to the potential blockbusters.

Paramount Home Entertainment is bowing five DVD configurations in support of the new Indiana Jones installment. Lionsgate, HBO Video and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment are likewise rallying around May theatrical bows of Speed Racer, Sex and the City and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, respectively (see chart).

With that new product onslaught, Amazon.com and DVDEmpire.com are among retailers building special promotions devoted to studio May tentpoles.

Amazon is launching an Indiana Jones store that month (www.amazon.com/indianajones) for the occasion. The microsite will hype all three previous Indy films, plus the Young Indiana Jones TV DVD series. Photo galleries and film clips also will be accessible there. Indy books, videogames and apparel will be featured.

DVDEmpire will present a refresher course on the franchise, providing a timeline of the Indy character, tracing his fictional adventures with real events that occurred during his lifetime.

Amazon also will issue a Sex and the City boutique, which will offer the show’s TV DVD catalog as well as similarly themed Lipstick Jungle on DVD. Books by Candace Bushnell, whose Sex and the City and Lipstick Jungle novels inspired the TV series, also will be available.

Additionally, Amazon is linking its DVD and books sections in order to cross-promote Chronicles of Narnia movies and their book sources. The site also will draft various car-themed DVDs off Speed Racer.

With such broad retail support, studios envision consumers hitting up stores just as much as concession stands in May.

“We’re approaching the [Indiana Jones] campaign as if it was a new release,”said Bob Buchi, senior VP of brand marketing at Paramount. “There will be a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign that will continue through Father’s Day. This will be Paramount’s No. 1 catalog event … maximizing the franchise’s home entertainment potential.”

Even if the May theatricals bomb, studios believe their tie-ins will be big draws on shelves.

Lionsgate’s Speed Racer The Next Generation title should be the first of several DVD releases in this series, which bows on Nick Toons on May 2.

“Independent of whether the Warner film is a success, we feel very good about our Speed Racer,” said Michael Rathauser, VP of marketing at Lionsgate. “Retail has been very supportive of the classic Speed Racer content, and I think you’ll see prominent placement for Next Generation.”

May merchandising