Hollywood Entertainment Corp., sometimes referred as Hollywood Video, was indeed a video game as well as home video rental store founded in 1988. Until it had been bought by Movie Gallery in 2005, the business was indeed the greatest direct rival to Blockbuster Video.
So when parent business, Movie Gallery, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May 2010, Hollywood Video discontinued business. Its final official shop inside the United States shut on July 31, 2010, although the last official one here in Canada shut on August 8, 2010.
The HollywoodVideo.com website was revived as just a blog in October 2011. The website is still up and running, however the most recent addition had been in October of 2014.
Mark Wattles dropped out of college in 1984 and also was having financial difficulties. Wattles’ parents gave him as well as his wife a VCR as a source of inexpensive amusement. Later, Wattles stated: “‘There must be other individuals in America in the same situation,’ I reasoned. This seems like a fantastic business opportunity to me.” Wattles borrowed money in 1985 to launch a 500-square-foot video rental business in downtown Portland, Oregon, with 300 titles. Wattles founded Hollywood Entertainment in 1988 as well as served as its president and chief executive. After then, shops in Washington, California, Nevada, and Texas opened.
Hollywood, which had 16 locations at the time, went public in 1993. The average Hollywood Video shop had 16,000 video cassettes and was 7,500 square feet in size in 1994. The corporation bought up to 70 copies of a popular movie for each store in certain cases, even though some locations had up to 200 copies of a single movie on hand. Each store produced about million at the time, and 78 more stores were expected to open in 1995.
Blockbuster sued Hollywood Entertainment for $10 million in January 1995 for employing five former Blockbuster workers. Blockbuster said that the workers were aware of the some of the company’s trade secrets, which they might utilise to help Hollywood Entertainment.
Hollywood Video had 117 locations there at time, compared to 2,800 for Blockbuster. In terms of national sales, Hollywood Video came in fourth. A judge decided in favour of Hollywood Entertainment in May 1995, saying Blockbuster had failed to show irreparable injuries as a result of the hire.
Hollywood Entertainment has 153 outlets in 11 states in June 1995. Stores with the names Video Park and Video Central were among the company’s locations.
That same month, Hollywood Entertainment announced ambitions to increase its shop count by the end of 1997. Hollywood Entertainment paid $59 million for the 42-store Video Watch chain inside the mid-western United States in August 1995.
Video Watch was indeed the fourth and last video rental business to be purchased by Hollywood Entertainment. Hollywood Entertainment revealed intentions to establish 90 outlets in Michigan out over following three years in November 1995. In 1996, the corporation also intended to establish over 200 locations.
In 1996, Hollywood planned to open three regional offices, one in each of Bay Areas of Chicago, Houston, and San Francisco.
Julie Wainwright took over as President as well as CEO of Reel.com, succeeding Stuart Skorman, the company’s creator. Upon 27 months, CEO Mark Wattles officially confirmed in July 1998 that Hollywood had acquired Reel.com “inside a contract worth at $100 million,” including $30 million in cash to Reel’s stockholders; Reel.com would have been to keep operating autonomously, led by Julie Wainwright, until Wainwright left and also was supplanted by Jeff Jordan.
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