By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - National Lampoon Inc. is challenging long-held film release practices by releasing "National Lampoon's Blackball" in theaters on Friday and on DVD four days later.

For executives at the company that has made millions of dollars at box offices off raw humor and college pranks in movies from 1978's "Animal House" to 2002's "Van Wilder," this four-day theatrical release is no laughing matter.

Normally, a Hollywood studio will send a film to theaters and several months later -- after the movie has had its run in theaters and collected all the ticket sales it can -- the film will be put on video or DVD for rental and retail sales.

But with DVD sales of $15 billion in 2004 far surpassing U.S. box office receipts of $9.4 billion, more movie companies are rushing films through theaters and onto retail shelves to take advantage of the advertising and promotion that typically support a film's theatrical release.

Theatrical marketing, in turn, creates consumer awareness that stimulates video rentals and DVD sales, and it appears National Lampoon's four-day turnaround is the fastest, yet.

"Clearly, we are ahead of the curve in emerging distribution platforms," said Barry Layne, executive vice president of National Lampoon.

Layne and Bill Bromley, senior vice president of First Look Home Entertainment which partnered with National Lampoon in the movie release, hope to show that movies can simultaneously win audiences in theaters and also sell videos and DVDs.

While National Lampoon is pushing Hollywood movie release envelopes with "Blackball," starring Vince Vaughn in a comedy centered on lawn bowling, other companies are also shrinking times between film and video releases.

In October, 2004, DreamWorks sent out "Surviving Christmas" to major hype. When it flopped at box offices the major studio rushed the videos and DVDs into stores by December.

Atlanta's The Convex Group put a Christmas movie, "Noel" in theaters last November and on the same day issued a disposable DVD -- different from National Lampoon's long-lasting DVD -- to retailers such as Amazon.com.

Dawn Whaley, executive vice president of The Convex Group, said she believed the publicity around the theatrical release did help spur sales of the DVD.

"The economics of the industry are changing," said National Lampoon's Layne, without the slightest hint of humor.

Reuters/VNU



Hollywood is trying to figure out how to spin shit into gold!

who?

vince vaughn = DVDs

KPH

i thought this thread was about how he made out with jennifer aniston.

i thought this thread was goign to be about The Wedding Crashers (which looks amazing)...

Who would've thought that a movie about Lawn Bowling would be a straight-to-dvd film?

is lawn bowling the same as bocci or that patonk game they played on the cosby show? because i'm pretty damned good at that.

Seems like they are trying to market that audience that loved Dodgeball so much. I hope Vince Vaughn doesn't get all Ben Stiller on us.

Vince Vaughn was at my high school two summers ago filming a movie.

Keanu Reeves wasn't. But he's in the movie.

So I like saw Vince Vaughn in one of my classes, he was surrounded by teenage girls.

I can appreciate him for being a total big at drunk in hollywood. so rare these days.

That looks like croquet - I see a wicket in the foreground.

nice try, though...

what the fuck is a patonk?

whatever. they're pretty interchangable "sports", cocksmooch.

i seriously just laughed for like 5 minutes at this

I've said swarmier things than that, and by pointing out that it's Croquet (and not lawnbowling) I get called that?

For Shame...

maybe that's because you're the neil hamburger of obner.

sounds about right. i forgot all about neil hamburger.

cocksmooch is fucking money. i'm sorry to see it happen to any obnerinian, but that shit is fucking money.

I used cocksmooch in an email today. True story.

lawn bowling= bocci

croquet = lots of "Heathers" quotes