re: Why is E.T. The most inaccessible film of all time?

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If a movie was a huge box office hit, the video rental of it too for fricking ever to be released.

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Because this was the very beginning of the industry and they were still figuring stuff out. ET was released in 1982, guess what else happened in 1982

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March 1982 – Legislation is introduced in the United States Senate to give copyright holders the exclusive right to authorize the rental of prerecorded videos, essentially allowing the motion picture studios to prevent video stores from renting movies.

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LINK

ET was in theaters for an entire year. The studios knew how to make money on movies in a theater, they were still figuring out monetizing VHS.

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1985 – 11 million VCRs are sold in the U.S., bringing its penetration to almost 30% of American TV households.

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So 3 years after ET was released in theaters VCRs are only in 30% of US homes.

Thank you. I remember actually being mad that it broke the box office record, similar to how I felt when Home Alone did it. I'm really not sure why that is. Maybe love of Star Wars.

The space movies flowed after Star Wars, but I think Shrek 2 was the real moment when studios started cranking out kid movies. I think it's still in the top 10 all time BO, or if not, it's very close.