Vestron video

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Vestron video

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founding 1980
Seat Stamford , CT , United States
Branch Media company

Vestron Video was the primary subsidiary of Vestron, Inc. , a film production and distribution company based in Stamford , Connecticut .

Vestron Video was active in the film business from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s, and they are widely recognized as pioneers of the early US home video market. Primarily, B-movies and films from the Cannon Films archive were released on VHS . Vestron Video later turned more and more to mainstream films, including productions by its subsidiary Vestron Pictures , the most famous being Dirty Dancing . Vestron Video & Vestron Video International was also the first company to publish National Geographic documentaries on VHS in the late 1980s.

Vestron went public in 1985 with an initial public offering (IPO ) of $ 440MM. The company enjoyed great success over several years, with a US video market share of 10% at times. Vestron Video distributed its films in over thirty countries, either directly or through sublicensing. As the big film studios slowly jumped into the home video market, it became more and more difficult for Vestron to assert itself. In addition, independent producers screwed up the prices for their films.

The company began to start its own productions (Dirty Dancing, Blue Steel , ...), but when the market changed - in other words: when the audience only wanted to see multi-million dollar Hollywood productions and no longer just any B Movie - it got dark for Vestron. The company could not keep up with the top productions of the major labels and so Vestron, Inc. filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the US law. On January 11, 1991, Vestron was purchased by LIVE Entertainment , a Los Angeles home video and music company, for $ 27.3 million. LIVE Entertainment got hold of Vestron's excessive film archive (more than 3000 films). The name was later changed to Artisan Entertainment (which is now part of Lionsgate ).

The international production departments were the second largest after those of Warner Bros. They had many direct cinema, TV and video distributors all over the world, they also had a video production company in the Netherlands to gain a foothold in the European market. The VHS releases were sold in Germany under the name Vestron Video International.

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