ROME --- Italian homevideo retailers association Unisoft has declared war against 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Italia over the division's upcoming release of ''Independence Day'' exclusively as a sell-through title, cutting video rental agencies out of the action.
With the exception of Disney's animated features, which occupy an exalted niche in the national homevideo market, films are issued as sell-through titles in Italy some time after the rental release or, in some cases, simultaneously.
Fox has bucked that tradition with the decision to withhold the rental edition of ''Day'' until one month after its March 6 release on sell-through. The company expects sales of over 700,000 units in Italy.
To protest Fox's release strategy, Unisoft has launched a campaign encouraging its members to offer a limited number of copies of ''Independence Day'' for overnight rental gratis to regular customers. In lieu of a rental fee, customers will be encouraged to contribute to a national AIDS-research charity.
Participating dealers will display a sign in their window underlining how the commercial strategies of certain firms (Fox is not named directly) are threatening the survival of video rental companies and compromising one of the few widely affordable forms of entertainment.
Fox has responded by sending letters to video retailers informing them of the legal violations involved in supplying sell-through merchandise for free rental, and underlining the possible repercussions for participants in the Unisoft initiative.
'We will not be bullied'
''As a studio, we will do everything we can to aggressively protect our rights,'' said 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Intl. president Jeffrey Yapp. ''We're surprised by this response from a local governing body that is misleading its members into committing an illegal act.
''We made these commercial decisions for specific reasons, and we will not be bullied or threatened into changing them. This is the biggest retail release Fox Italy has ever undertaken, and we want to do everything we can to improve the Italian retail market.''
The numbers
Meanwhile, Italy's homevideo market posted a 5.4% increase last year, with sales up to 399 billion lire (about $250 million), the homevideo association Univideo reported Monday.
Rental of pre-recorded tapes was virtually unchanged last year, with a mere 0.1% increase to $65 million, while sales showed a 7.4% growth to $185 million.
(Cecilia Zecchinelli in Milan contributed to this report. )
Contact the Variety newsroom at
news@variety.com