Movies

Movie Gallery

Movie Gallery was created in 1985 by Joe Malugen and Harrison Parrish in Dothan, Alabama. Through a subsidiary called MGA, INC the two began opening stores in Alabama and the Florida panhandle, as well as franchising the brand. By 1987 the Movie Gallery owned five stores and 45 franchises. In 1988, a process began to purchase all franchised locations and make them corporately held stores. In 1992, the company owned 37 stores and reported revenues of $6 million. In a little known fact announced by Malugen at the Movie Gallery 2005 Manager's Conference, the company during this time had the opportunity to purchase a small company by the name of Blockbuster, but did not have the funding necessary and did not see much value in the companies assests .In August 1994, the company completed an initial public offering of its stock. With the proceeds of this offering, the company began to aggressively acquire smaller chains, particularly in the southeast. By the middle of 1996, Movie Gallery had grown to over 850 stores via 100 separate acquisitions. In 1999, Movie Gallery completed an 88-store acquisition of Blowout Entertainment with several stores operated within Wal-Mart Supercenter stores in May and ended the year with more than 950 locations in 31 states. This was also the beginning of the company announcing plans to open at least 100 stores within a year. The new openings would surpass 100 a year in 2000.The company expanded itself by 30% in December of 2001 with the acquisition of the bankrupted Video Update stores. This included 100 locations in Canada, marking the companies first expansion outside of the US. As a result of continued acquisition, the company would increase to 2000 stores by 2003. Also during this time the company made the decision to rebrand ALL acquired stores as Movie Gallery and underwent an aggressive strategy to ensure all stores used Movie Gallery branded materials.On April 27, 2005 Movie Gallery completed the largest acquisition in its history with its purchase of Hollywood Entertainment. This included the takeover of Hollywood Video retail stores, Game Crazy stores, and the REEL.com website. This was followed in June with the purchase of VHQ entertainment, one of the largest Canadian video rentailers, and adding 61 Canadian locations. While the VHQ purchase included its online rental service, this would shortly thereafter be sold.It was announced in March 2007 that the company had purchased MovieBeam, and movie download service owned by Disney, Cisco, and Intel for less than $10 million. Plans were announced to begin offering internet downloads through the service as well as further developments, though no specifics have yet been provided outside those involving the True Choice program On May 11, 2007 the company announced plans to launch an online rental service called True Choice. The focus will not be to compete with Netflix or Blockbuster Total Access, but to instead focus on providing customers with more buying options and a larger catalog of films. The service will be tested this summer before being rolled out nationwide. It was also announced that the company would include Moviebeam in a larger rollout in 2008.

Soul tanning

Tanning can be found in some Movie Gallery stores, with a particular focus in southern stores as well as the company owning Sun and Soul tanning in Alabama. The number of stores with Tanning has increased year to year, though at this time no Hollywood stores have seen tanning added. In order to open a tanning account, customers must be age 16 or older. The types of bed can vary from location to location, though the company recently introduced a Movie Gallery branded bed in new stores.Movie Gallery carries adult product in some of its stores including both rental, previously viewed, and new sell thru product. Only in certain stores is this product is kept in a sealed area, requiring customers to go into a special adult room in order to see the product, but all stores do atleast have the covers blocked out. Some stores also provide Black Bags in which customers can place adult product in order to avoid any objectional material being viewed by customers, though items must be checked out at the front counter. The stores with their own adult area run their own promotions separate from the main store. The company enforces a very rigid rental policy with adult product in which a customer must present their ID to show they are of legal age usually 18, though this can be 21 or older in some areas. Associates are also required to card anyone they believe to be underaged that enters the room.The American Family Association ran a newspaper campaign in 2005 via USA Today, the Washington Post, and Oregonian in an attempt to convince Hollywood Entertainment stock holders to vote against the buyout by Movie Gallery. These ads attempted to detail the negative impacts adult product could have on communities as well as suggesting that Movie Gallery would place adult product into Hollywood stores . It should also be noted that while the AFA ads suggest a large number of stores carry the product, in actuality less than 100 Movie Gallery stores carry the product.

Hollywood Video

Since 2005 the company has been placing movie rental Kiosks in Grocery stores. These Kiosks carry the Hollywood Video name and allow customers to rent movies with a valid credit card, usually for 1 day rentals. Extended viewing fees are charged to the customer's card.Kiosks have also been seen in front of high traffic stores to allow customers rentals after retail locations are closed. Since 2005 the company has been placing Self CheckOut systems in some of their Hollywood stores. The goal of the Self CheckOut system is to shorten wait-times and strengthen guest loyalty. These units, similar to what some large grocery store chains have adopted, allow guests to check out their own movies and concessions. There are 3 guest facing terminals and one master terminal enabling the Hollywood employee to help 3 guests at a time. In 2006 Hollywood Video started placing Retail Merchandizing Units in malls across the country. The RMU�s are mini stores that sell new and previously viewed movies. The goal is to give the company more visibility to the public and drive business to traditional brick and mortar stores by offering coupons with each sale. The company picks high traffic malls to accomplish this. MovieBeam is a set top service currently offered in larger cities in which customers can download movies to a set top box. Most movies expire within 24 hours. The company was originally founded by Disney and other investors as an alternative to online movie downloads. A special set top box must be purchased by consumers for the service. Most major movie studios provide New Release content to the service.

Hollywood Video and Game

Hollywood Video logoHollywood Video, operated from Wilsonville, Oregon, is a DVD and video game rental shop chain in the United States. Started in 1988 by former CEO Mark Wattles and his wife, it was the largest direct competitor of Blockbuster Video until it was purchased by Movie Gallery. It also operates Game Crazy departments within its stores and a few free-standing locations, which are dedicated to buying, selling and trading video games and related items. Employees of Hollywood Video are expected to adhere to the mission statement, Hollywood is dedicated to exceptional guest experiences delivered with genuine warmth and friendliness. As of July 23, 2007, Hollywood Video and Game Crazy partners are expected to adhere to the E4 Program. The four are Engage, Entertain, Everyone, Every Time. This is a 100% compliance policy which directs every Hollywood Video partner to ask every guest if they would like concessions, an MVP, additional rentals or purchases, and a Play Guard with every rental. The consequences of not following this policy are a written warning and then termination.Unhappy with the direction that the board of directors was taking the company, founder Mark Wattles attempted to purchase the company back to go private, with the help of Leonard Green & Partners, a buyout firm. This began a bidding war for Hollywood, starting the chain of events that would bring Hollywood under Movie Gallery's flag.This may explain why many The Movies moviemakers choose to use outside tools for post-production.Given its recent release, there are already a lot of machinima movies made with The Movies that have been noticed outside of its isolated community. Given the breadth of the story telling capabilities of the game, there will certainly be more in the future, even if Lionhead discontinues the game development.Movie Gallery based in Dothan, Alabama, is the second largest movie and game rental company in the United States, behind Blockbuster Video. It rents and sells DVDs, movie videos, and video games. It has over 4,700 stores in North America, operating mainly under the Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video brands. The Hollywood Video brand is operated out of Wilsonville, Oregon