MGM Home Entertainment has partnered with Amazon.com in a first-of-its-kind deal under which the e-tailer will be the exclusive seller of 100 VHS titles from the MGM library at $7.99 each.
Most of the titles are B movies, and many of them have never been released on video. But many feature prominent stars, are early productions by now-popular directors or have a cult following, such as the 1970 Roger Corman movie "Bloody Mama," starring Robert De Niro, Bruce Dern and Shelley Winters.
Others include "Convicts" (1991), with Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones; "Eureka" (1981), starring Gene Hackman; "Grace Quigley" (1985), with Katharine Hepburn and Nick Nolte; and "Hanna's War" (1988), starring Ellen Burstyn.
Cult films include the thriller "The Attic" (1979), starring Carrie Snodgress and Ray Milland; "The Burning" (1981), featuring Holly Hunter's film debut; "Daughters of Satan" (1972), a supernatural thriller with Tom Selleck; "Dance Macabre" (1991), with Robert Englund; and sex comedy "Ghosts Can't Do It" (1990), with Bo Derek.
The titles will be featured in a special MGM Movie Vault Store within the Amazon.com Web site.
About 20 of the titles were never released on video, and more than half have not been available for "a long time," according to MGM exec VP of marketing Blake Thomas. The films were chosen partly from Amazon's customer requests and priced at $7.99 as a "competitive and compelling price" to entice consumers whose only knowledge of the films may come from an Amazon promotional email.
"Amazon has infinite shelf space," he noted. "You combine that with powerful personalization tools, and they're uniquely able to match up customers' needs with videos books, software, etc., that meets those needs.."
(Villa is a reporter for Daily Variety sister publication Video Business.)
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