When Tapes Cost $69: How the Movie Business Changed

What happens when the business you love keeps changing underneath you?

The movie business once ran on $69 videotapes and 29,000 video stores. Joe Amodei of Virgil Films was there for all of it, and on his second visit he tells the history of home video and film distribution as he lived it: the video store boom, the switch to DVD, the first streaming deals, and the free, ad-supported sites he once said nobody would watch.

In Episode 183, Christian Taylor sits down with Joe Amodei, with Jason Rugg hosting and co-host Robbie asking questions too. Joe tells how a store called Video Village pulled him away from fixing sewing machines, how one store became an 18-store chain, and what a video convention in Las Vegas looked like when Paramount built a replica of the Titanic on the showroom floor. He remembers when tapes cost video stores $69, what changed when Paramount sold Raiders of the Lost Ark for $19.99, and how Bing Crosby and Jerry Lewis quietly pioneered videotape.

The heart of the conversation is why Joe keeps going. He tells what Robert Altman said about him on a call ("he's not a suit"), why he finished a film about his hero Clarence Clemons after Clarence died four weeks into the project, and why a distribution market he called "probably the worst it ever has been" still doesn't make him want to retire. "I watch movies for a living," he says. Christian asks the question every independent filmmaker had that fall: where do our films go now? Joe's answers are honest and sometimes hard. Christian also shares what happened the week The Girl Who Wore Freedom came out on video on demand, from a screening for 250 high school students in New York to a screening in Atlanta.

Full disclosure: Virgil Films distributes The Girl Who Wore Freedom, released on video on demand November 1, 2022, and now sponsors Documentary First. This episode has no sponsor read.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How one video store grew into an 18-store chain
• When a VHS tape cost a video store $69
• What Raiders of the Lost Ark at $19.99 did to the business
• How Bing Crosby and Jerry Lewis pioneered videotape
• What Joe said when Netflix first asked him for 100 movies to stream
• Why streamers stopped licensing films and started making their own
• When a filmmaker should walk away from a project
• How an Amazon rental gets split, in Joe's example
• Why Joe changed his mind about AVOD sites like Tubi and Pluto

CHAPTERS

0:00 Joe's Second Visit

2:48 Sewing Machines to VHS

9:22 When Tapes Cost $69

15:35 He's Not a Suit

20:05 Working With Clarence Clemons

25:53 Worst Market Ever?

32:55 Where Do Indies Go?

43:28 How the Money Flows

47:53 Films Can Change People

52:33 Betting on AVOD

1:00:43 DocuView Deja View Picks

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How did home video start?

Joe Amodei of Virgil Films told Documentary First in 2022 that home video started with Magnetic Video, which put out a small group of 20th Century Fox films on tape, sold at first in camera stores. Video stores paid $69 a tape, so the business was rentals only, until Paramount tested Raiders of the Lost Ark at $19.99 and everybody bought it.

How much should an independent documentary cost?

Speaking in 2022, Joe Amodei said the days of two or three million dollar documentaries are over unless the subject is someone like Whitney Houston. Documentaries can be made for $300,000 to $500,000 and earn that back over several years. Spend $700,000 or $800,000 on a documentary that isn't a sensational story, he warned, and you're going to be in trouble.

How does a filmmaker get paid when a film is rented on Amazon?

Joe Amodei explained in 2022 that a distributor can only suggest a retail price; Amazon sets the actual price but pays the distributor's cut of the suggested price. In his example, which he stressed was not his real split, a 50/50 cut on $12.99 brings in about $6.50. The distributor takes its percentage and its costs, and the filmmaker gets the rest.

Is AVOD good for independent films?

Joe Amodei told Documentary First in 2022 that he first said nobody would watch movies with commercials. Then Tubi and Pluto grew to 60 or 70 million members within a year, and AVOD became the one part of the business where he saw growth. Tubi in particular loves documentaries, he said, and he expects AVOD to be an even bigger part of independent film's future.

DocuView Deja View Picks

Jason: Why You Should Watch Experimental Docs (YouTube video essay)

Robbie: Closed for Storm

Christian: Travelin' Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall

Joe: Sidney

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About the Guest

Joe Amodei started at a local video store, worked at Turner and Polygram, and ran USA Home Entertainment, releasing films like Traffic and Being John Malkovich, before starting the company that became Virgil Films. Follow Virgil on Instagram and X.

About Virgil Films

Virgil Films and Entertainment acquires and distributes documentaries, feature films and series. Its releases include Super Size Me, the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, Forks Over Knives, Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me and I Am Chris Farley. virgilfilms.com

About Documentary First

Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.

Resources Mentioned

• Virgil Films and Entertainment
• Episode 128: Joe Amodei's first visit
• Episode 194: Joe Amodei's five film business tips