Holiday video season shapes up // `Indiana Jones' signals an early marketing push

Now is hardly the time to be thinking of sleighbells and holidaycheer, but video dealers can already hear the distant jingle of busycash registers and seasonal profits.

And the pace is quickening with Paramount Home Video'sannouncement that "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," the GeorgeLucas-Steven Spielberg actioner that grossed $325 million in theUnited States after its 1984 release, will be out on tape on Oct. 29.

Once again, Paramount is pricing a mega-hit at $29.95, just asit did last year at holiday time with "Beverly Hills Cop," which soldmore than 1.4 million cassettes and was on the Top 20 lists for morethan six months.

Interestingly, "BHC" was released last November as the studiosjockeyed for position in the lucrative holiday market. The bigleadoff hitter last year - right around Halloween - was"Ghostbusters," which RCA/Columbia Home Video released at $79.95 withtremendous success.

"Ghostbusters" will be back this year - at $29.95 - as part of RCA/Columbia's "Wrap UpHollywood" promotion of 22 titles at that discount price. Thepromotion, which will run from late September until Dec. 31, alsoincludes such biggies as "The Karate Kid," "Starman" and "A Passageto India" and it illustrates another aspect of the holiday season.

The combinations of discount packages and new-release hits willbe almost endless - and video store owners may find themselvestoasting the new year with Maalox instead of Champagne from thestrain of trying to guess right. (One trade journal estimates athousand current titles will be re-priced to under $30 by Christmas.)

These marketing ploys were all used last year. The differencethis year is the extent to which they will be employed and thetiming. The "holiday season" continues to creep up the videocalendar, with some discount packages that arguably areholiday-related scheduled to begin as early as Sept. 3.

And Paramount, long regarded as one of the most innovativestudios in the video marketplace, has taken a strong step to positionitself at what is becoming the start of the season. (In a neat bit ofone-upmanship, Paramount will be releasing a holiday package thatwill include "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "White Christmas" and"Beverly Hills Cop" - all at $20.)

By releasing the sequel to "Raiders" just before Halloween(although the tie to that holiday is much vaguer than was the casewith "Ghostbusters"), Paramount will attract a lot of attention. Andthe $29.95 price, which is scheduled to hold through January, 1987,will give "Indiana Jones" a tremendous boost as a stocking stuffer.

Will Paramount be able to repeat the success of "Beverly HillsCop" with "Indiana"? Probably not. "BHC" was a much bigger draw forEddie Murphy than "Indiana" was for Harrison Ford. Critics generallyfelt that "Indiana" was not as well-paced as "Raiders" and some feltthat Kate Capshaw, the "Indiana" heroine, had none of the electricityof Karen Allen in "Raiders."

Still, Harrison Ford has a tremendous video presence as a resultof "Witness," one of the year's big releases. And kids probably willbe willing to watch the endless chase scenes in "Indiana Jones,"well, endlessly.

And, after all, it is only August. The announcement of the"Indiana Jones" release date is only the opening salvo in anescalating war.

Happy holidays.

Have questions on the Chicago video market? Write to KevinMoore, Chicago Sun-Times, 401 N. Wabash, Chicago 60611. Althoughletters cannot be answered individually, questions of generalinterest will be answered in the column.