Roadshow Entertainment

Australian production company

Roadshow EntertainmentFormerly| Roadshow Home Video (1982–1993)

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Company type| Subsidiary
Industry| Film distribution
Founded| 16 April 1982; 42 years ago (1982-04-16)
Headquarters|

Sydney, New South Wales

Australia

Area served

| Australia
New Zealand
Products| Home video
Cinematic
Parent| Village Roadshow
Divisions| Roadshow Films
Website| https://ent.roadshow.com.au/main/

Roadshow Entertainment (formerly known as Roadshow Home Video from 1982–1993) is an Australian home video, production and distribution company that is a division of Village Roadshow (formerly Roadshow Home Video and Roadshow Entertainment) that distributes films in Australia and New Zealand. Their first release was Mad Max. Roadshow Entertainment is an independent video distributor in Australia and New Zealand.

## History

[edit]

In 1982, Village Roadshow Entertainment was founded as Roadshow Home Video as a subsidiary of Roadshow Distributors.[1][2] Their first batch of movie titles, released on both VHS and Betamax format, were:

* Sex World (1978)
* The Never Dead (aka: Phantasm, 1979)
* Mad Max (1979, with blue cover art)
* Insatiable (1980)
* Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
* A Change of Seasons (1980)
* Atlantic City (1980)
* Scanners (1981)
* King of the Mountain (1981)
* Montenegro (1981)
* Endless Love (1981)

Around the same time, the company launched a label, Vibrant Video, which was dedicated to primarily R-rated adult fare and horror films, but the label itself did not last very long, as some of the titles have been moved to Palace.[3]

1984: Palace Films was started as a home video distributor between Roadshow, Blake Films and private investor Antony Veccola, with Roadshow handling home video distribution of its titles.[4]

In 1985, Roadshow Home Video became Village Roadshow Home Video and Premiere Home Entertainment was established.[5] Veccola bought out the other company's stock of Palace and it ventured out into the film distribution business and opened a small number of art-house cinemas around Australia's main cities and became an independent company. Its home video release were still handled by Village Roadshow until the late 1990s. That year, the company began picking up titles from Walt Disney Home Video in the Australian market, taking over from home video distributor Syme Home Video.[6]

1989: Applause Home Video was established as a Village Roadshow label, with Babette's Feast being the first title under the label.[7] Video Selection Australia was also established by Roadshow as a label for family releases.[8]

In 1992, Disney elected to split up its ties from Roadshow Home Video and the company became an independent home video distributor by way of Buena Vista Home Video's Australian arm.[9]

1993: Village Roadshow Home Video becomes Village Roadshow Entertainment. Around the same time, the Premiere, Applause and Video Selection Australia labels were discontinued.

In 1994, the company launched its own interactive division, called Roadshow New Media, aka Roadshow Interactive to publish software for Australia and New Zealand.[10]

Late 1990s: Palace's home video distribution with Roadshow has been expired, Palace would instead sign a home video deal with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. In 2008 Palace films signed a contract with Madman Entertainment to be the Australian and New Zealand distributor of DVDs/Blu-ray/4K Ultra HD titles in both Australia and New Zealand.

Roadshow started releasing DVDs in Australia with the release of Evita on 31 October 1997.[11][12]

In 2008, Roadshow started releasing Blu-rays.

On 21 September 2020, Warner Bros. announced that its distribution deal with Village Roadshow would expire at the end of 2020. The two studios' partnership had lasted for more than four decades. Since 2021, Warner Bros' films are released theatrically through Universal Pictures International,[13] while Roadshow is continuing to release future Warner Bros. titles through their physical media and digital formats.

## Roadshow and Village Roadshow subsidiaries and divisions

[edit]

* Roadshow Vibrant Video (1982-1983) - a division for distributing adult films
* Premiere Home Entertainment (1985–1993) – a division of Village Roadshow
* Festival Video (1983–1990s) – a joint venture with Festival Mushroom Records and Warner Bros.
* Mushroom Video (1983–1990s) – a joint venture with Festival Mushroom Records and Warner Bros.
* Applause Home Video (1989–1993) – a division of Village Roadshow
* Reel Corporation (2000s–) – budget division of Village Roadshow
* Hopscotch Films (2005–2011) – distributed by Village Roadshow (stopped in 2011 when eOne acquired Hopscotch for $20.7 million.)
* Palace Home Video/Entertainment/Films (1984–2000) – (subsidiary of Roadshow/Village Roadshow) (split itself from Village Roadshow in the late 1990s)
* Roadshow New Media (1990s) – video games publishing division of Village Roadshow, also known as Roadshow Interactive
* Roadshow-Lorimar Home Video (1985–1990) – a division for distributing Lorimar releases
* Roadshow Music (1994–2013)[14]

## Labels distributed, duplicated and re-supplied

[edit]

Roadshow Entertainment has its own label named Roadshow Films, which is in turn the theatrical distribution unit of Village Roadshow. The unit was originally formed in 1968 by the owners of Village Cinemas as quite simply Roadshow, initially to distribute drive-in pictures, often in collaboration with fellow Australian distributor Blake Films under the joint releasing label of Blake-Roadshow, and the acquisition of reissue rights of South Pacific.[15][16] These films were so successful that Roadshow would gain the Australian franchise for pictures by American International Pictures in order to give them access to a continuing library of product.[17][18][16]

In 1971, it entered a long-standing partnership with Warner Bros. to distribute and market its films in Australia and New Zealand under a joint venture, called Roadshow International, with the distribution side for international producers being renamed to Roadshow Distributors.[17][18][16][19][20]

The company begin expanding in local film production after the success of the 1971 film Stork, to start out a joint venture film production company Hexagon Productions, with Tim Burstall and Associates, and the company Bilcock and Copping, who each held 25% of its shares. The company made major hits, like Alvin Purple, which became a smash hit for the Australian film market, and Bilcock and Copping backed out of the venture prior to making the film Eliza Fraser.[21][22][23][24] When Hexagon went dormant in the 1970s, the company continued to distribute local productions by other studios, including the smash hit Mad Max by Kennedy Miller, and the international film Rebel by Phillip Emanuel.[25] In 1974, the company began entering television distribution within the Roadshow group under the name of Roadshow Television.[17]

In 1987, it merged with Greater Union Film Distributors to form Roadshow-Greater Union Distributors, with Roadshow Distributors and Greater Union Distributors acting as subsidiaries of the unit. The company began distributing films produced by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution with its units of Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures. The company as a whole was merged into Roadshow five years later.[26][27] In 1989, the company begin distributing pictures produced by its American-based subsidiary Village Roadshow Pictures, a sister firm that was established that year.[18]

In 1998, Buena Vista International parted ways with the company in order to set up its own Australian distribution arm.[28] Also that year, when Village Roadshow Pictures shuttered its international division, Beyond Films begin representing the sales for Australian productions.[29][30] In 2001, the company's film distribution unit became Roadshow Films, while Miramax split its ties from Roadshow to shift itself to BVI.[31]

On 16 December 2014, Roadshow Films acquired a 33% stake in American film production and international sales company FilmNation Entertainment.[32] However, as of 2017, Roadshow Films' stake has since reduced to 31%.

* ABC (branded as ABC DVD and ABC Music)
* Foxtel Original
* Lantern Entertainment
* Dimension Films (post-2005 titles only)
* Lionsgate
* Nine Network (mid 1990s–present)
* Fremantle
* Village Roadshow Pictures
* Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (mid 2016–present)
* MGM Home Entertainment (2020–present) (via Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
* Reel Corporation (branded as Reel DVD)
* ITV Studios Home Entertainment (branded as ITV)
* FilmNation Entertainment
* Mandalay Pictures
* STX Entertainment

### Former

[edit]

* Endeavour Entertainment (branded as Endeavour-Roadshow)
* Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (1985–1992) (started self-distributing their own releases on home video)
* New World International (1983–1991)
* BBC (1996–2019) (moved to Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) (moved to Madman Entertainment in 2024)
* Focus Features (2003–2009) (moved to Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
* Warner Bros. Pictures (1971–2020) (moved to Universal Pictures International)
* Miramax (pre-2022) (moved to Paramount Pictures International)
* American International Pictures/Filmways Pictures/Orion Pictures (1969–1991) (moved to Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International)
* Producers Sales Organization (1977–1986)
* Carolco Pictures (1982–1995)
* Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (1987–1999) (started self-distributing their own releases)
* New Line Cinema (1991–2010) (moved to Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
* Network 10 (1980s–mid 1990s, 2018–2024)

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Firms rally to beat the pirates". The Sydney Morning Herald. 21 March 1982. p. 70.
2. ^ "Star Wars taped". The Sydney Morning Herald. 25 April 1982. p. 57.
3. ^ "New Releases". The Sydney Morning Herald. 7 November 1982. p. 94.
4. ^ "Blockbusters and porn to lead the cassette sales pitch". The Sydney Morning Herald. 20 February 1984. p. 38.
5. ^ "Hints of a sharp improvement". The Sydney Morning Herald. 28 October 1985. p. 59.
6. ^ "Steep yourself for a steep rise in movie charges". The Sydney Morning Herald. 11 February 1985. p. 44.
7. ^ "Home Video Review". The Sydney Morning Herald. 5 March 1989. p. 205.
8. ^ "Video". The Sydney Morning Herald. 25 June 1989. p. 124.
9. ^ "Disney tie-up". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2 August 1992. p. 116.
10. ^ Groves, Don (23 January 1995). "Village Roadshow Solid Thanks To Roc". Variety. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
11. ^ "DVD collecting reaches hits-and-memories era". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2 August 2003. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
12. ^ "Evita (1996)". www.michaeldvd.com.au.
13. ^ "Warner Bros Ends Australia Distribution Alliance with Village Roadshow After Four Decades". 21 September 2020. Archived from the original on 22 September 2020.
14. ^ Scott Fitzsimons (27 May 2013). "EXCLUSIVE: Home Of Savage Garden, Roadshow Music Folds". The Music. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
15. ^ Burke, Graham (1 July 1975). "Village". Cinema Papers. p. 34.
16. ^ a b c Aveyard, Karina; Moran, Albert; Vieth, Errol (26 December 2017). Historical Dictionary of Australian and New Zealand Cinema. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 9781538111277.
17. ^ a b c Hanson, Stuart (26 July 2019). Screening the World: Global Development of the Multiplex Cinema. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783030189952.
18. ^ a b c Goldsmith, Ben (2010). Local Hollywood. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702238017.
19. ^ "The Australian Film Industry - A Duopoly in Distribution and Exhibition". Cinema Papers. 1 March 1975. pp. 37–39.
20. ^ "75:25". Cinema Papers. 1 April 1974. p. 31.
21. ^ Scott Murray, 'Tim Burstall', Cinema Papers Sept-Oct 1979 p494
22. ^ David Stratton, The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival, Angus & Robertson, 1980 p28
23. ^ Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998 p274
24. ^ Scott Murray, 'Tim Burstall', Cinema Papers Sept-Oct 1979 p494
25. ^ Cunningham, Stuart; Jacks, Elizabeth (1 December 1993). "Village Roadshow and Warner Roadshow: Mysteries of the Organization". Cinema Papers. p. 25.
26. ^ "Roadshow, Greater Union Merge Distribution Operations". Variety. 16 September 1987. p. 41.
27. ^ Groves, Don (2010). AHL: 100 Years of Entertainment. Amalgamated Holdings Ltd. ISBN 9780958946612.
28. ^ Groves, Don (17 February 1998). "BVI ponders Finney for Aussie post". Variety. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
29. ^ Carver, Benedict (29 October 1998). "Village's Roadshow". Variety. Retrieved 14 June 2023.
30. ^ Groves, Don (9 October 1998). "Village goes Beyond". Variety. Retrieved 14 June 2023.
31. ^ Groves, Don (22 October 2001). "Pacific rim distrib'n". Variety. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
32. ^ "Roadshow Entertainment Nabs Stake In FilmNation Entertainment". Variety. 17 December 2014.

## External links

[edit]

* Roadshow Home Video
* Welcome to Roadshow

Authority control databases |

* VIAF

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