Big-Selling Mary-Kate and Ashley Grow Up, Get New Format

By: Seth Goldstein

DualStar Video will spend $2-3 mil on each of three movies that will be distributed on national network television, foregoing the company's past success with direct-to-videosales

There's no escaping the Olsen Twins and Warner Home Video is happy not to try. Sales of cassettes starring Mary-Kate and Ashley exceed $250 million in wholesale value, according to their attorney, Robert Thorne. The bulk of the money has gone to the studio.

Before Warner, BMG Video had the Twins and the early releases under contract. However, age does bring change. The 13-year-old Twins are dropping their preferred format of half-hour, direct-to-video releases to concentrate on more grownup features like Billboard Dad and Passport to Paris.

In April, about the time the last of the 30-minute episodes streets, Warner gets Switching Goals, a made-for-TV movie that airs next month on the Wait Disney Co.'s ABC network. Disney wanted the title for Buena Vista Home Entertainment. However, Thorne says he would not accept any change in the studio release pattern. "They had a coronary, but they agreed," he adds.

The Twins' cassette sales total hovers around 18 million units, by Thorne's count. "They're our bread-and-butter," says Warner Family Entertainment marketing and development VP Dan Capone. "They pay the bills." The Twins' clout in video derives from their enormous TV and book following, still strong after all these years.

"You can't get into the marketplace unless there's a huge media base," Thorne says. "Longevity is nice icing on the cake." DualStar Video, the Twins' production company, is financing three movies--at $2 million to $3 million apiece--that Warner will distribute after network exposure. In the past, Fox Network bought the TV rights now, Thorne thinks they may go to Disney and ABC instead.

Thorne plans to release new features on cassette and an older one on DVD, plus VHS and DVD compilations of older half-hour titles over the course of the year starting in 2000. DVD is moving slowly because "the market just isn't there yet," he says. However, that should change by the end of next year when VHS and DVD versions of new titles appear on the same date.

Catalog titles are expected to disappear on the Twins' 18th birthday in June 2004. It won't be for lack of sales. "We're a top priority to [Warner] because we sell," Thorne boasts. Unit volume ranges from several hundred thousand to more than 1.2 million for Passport to Paris. The numbers will improve with time, he predicts. "We think we can get to 4 million in direct-to-video" in about five years. "Nobody else has really made a concerted effort."