Their appeal is to families with young children, who may go to only a couple of movies per year but who will watch many videos multiple times. Often, the downfall of live-action family films at the box office is their strength on video. Family films became more important than such genres later in the 1990s, as retailers stocked more copies of blockbuster films instead of more titles. Erotic thrillers and R-rated action films were the two most successful genres. īy 1994 an average of six new direct-to-video films appeared each week. The practice of creating and releasing regular fiction specifically for video didn't really take off until 1994 with Disney's The Return of Jafar and Universal's The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure, neither of which was intended to hit theaters at any point in its production.
Īnimated sequels and feature-length episodes of animated series are also often released in this fashion. ĭirect-to-video releases can be done for films which cannot be shown theatrically due to controversial content, or because the cost involved in a theatrical release is beyond the releasing company. Like B-movies shown in drive-in theaters in the mid-20th century, direct-to-video films employ both former stars and young actors who may become stars later. In film industry slang, such films are referred to as having been "vaulted".
This delay often occurs when a studio doubts a film's commercial prospects justify a full cinema release, or because its release window has closed.
Some films released direct-to-video are films which have been completed but were never released in movie theaters. ĭirect-to-video releases have historically carried a stigma of lower technical or artistic quality than theatrical releases. Direct-to-video films are marketed mostly through colorful box covers, instead of advertising, and are not covered by publications like Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide. Studios then generate revenue through video sales and rentals. Studios, limited in the annual number of films to which they grant cinematic releases, may choose to pull the completed film from the theaters, or never exhibit it in theaters at all.
Reasons for releasing direct to video Ī production studio may decide not to generally release a TV show or film for several possible reasons: a low budget, a lack of support from a TV network, negative reviews, its controversial nature, that it may appeal to a small niche market, or a simple lack of general public interest.