Groundhog Day

Directed by Harold Ramis

Columbia Studios

Melissa Blinkoff, James Grant, Vanessa Griffith, John Brooks, Oluseyi Sode, Pierre

Rousseau

Box Office

Grossed $14,600,000 it’s opening weekend

$70,000,000 overall

Rentals it made $32,500,000

Budget 14.6 million

Filmed March 16-June 10, 1992

Released February 12, 1993

Groundhog Day was the #1 movie for two weeks

1990s

Box office sales decreased in the early 90s due to the economic recession but increased by 1993.

Average film ticket $4.25-5.00

Quality meant expensive special effects

Chase scenes, high tech graphics

Higher cost for celebrities, agency fees, production costs, promotional campaigns, CGI (computer generated images), threats of actor and writer strikes

The Digital Age

2/3 of households owned at least one VCR in 1991.

Rentals and purchases of video tapes were higher in sales than movie theater tickets.

Members of the Academy of Motion Pictures viewed Oscar-nominated films on videotape in 1994

Digital Development

The home-video market became a major factor in total revenue for a film

Doubled the total income for a film

An important digital development was the DVD (digital versatile disc)

Held 10 times more information than the CD

DVD players outpaced VHS sales when they emerged in 1997.

Many produced films went directly to DVD or cable without appearing in theaters.

Changes in the Major Studios

1990 – Warner Communications and Time Inc. merged to form Time/Warner

Largest communications merger to date

Late 1990 – Japanese corporation Matsushita Industrial, Inc. acquired MCA/Universal for $6.1 billion.

1994 – Viacom bought Paramount Pictures

Disney became the first studio to gross $1 billion at the box office

International

Even after Groundhog Day was released in the United States, it continued to be released overseas a year later.

Argentina, Sweden, Australia, Germany, Finland, UK, Denmark, Spain, Netherlands (1994)