The show that paved the way for film critics to casually enter your living rooms and engage in debates about the week`s hottest new movies is taking the lead again.
”Sneak Previews” is going video, making it the first such review show to focus mainly on home video releases.
Beginning Sept. 8, the half-hour PBS show hosted by Michael Medved and Jeffrey Lyons and produced by Chicago`s WTTW-Ch. 11 will shift its emphasis from reviewing first-run feature films to recommending newly released home videos of theatrical films, special-interest, children`s and exercise tapes.
”It was our feeling to revamp `Sneak Previews,` ” said Patterson Denny, senior vice president for production at WTTW. ”We`re trying to come up with another way to serve the public.”
And in a market already saturated with movie-review shows, ”Sneak Previews” creators are hoping this will inject some freshness.
The purpose of changing the show ”is to differentiate it from the copy-cat movie-review shows,” said Michael Hirsh, vice president of program development and marketing, though the original hosts of ”Sneak Previews”-
critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert-might ask who`s copying whom.
That home videos are an $8 billion-a-year industry and first-run, feature-length films generate $4.5 billion also played a role in the decision to change the format.
Most of the funding for the new show is expected to come from the proceeds of a 24-hour hot line number in which consumers can call and get on- the-spot video recommendations from Medved and Lyons, Hirsh said. The number, 1-900-IN-VIDEO, which begins in September, will give the caller access to four different lines, offering information about new video releases, family videos, classic titles and current theatrical films.
Each three-minute call will cost $2, and the proceeds are expected to generate enough money to cover production for a season, about $600,000, Hirsh said.
”What we`re offering is video reviews when people really need it,” he said.
Labeling the show a ”consumers guide to renting videos,” Denny said it will forgo detailed reviews of recent theatrical releases. Instead, the focus will be on refreshing the consumer`s memory of what`s hot and what`s not.
”There`s a substantial amount of time lag between when something is released and when it goes to video,” Denny said, adding that the point is to help the consumer remember what the movie`s about by the time they get to the store.
Staged in either a living-room or a video-store setting, the show will cover twice the number of films as the old show and offer less discussion between Medved and Lyons.
”I enjoy arguing as much as the next guy but lengthy battles are not necessary for edifying the audience,” Medved said. ”What people are most interested in is an overview and a taste.”
Executive producer Katherine MacMillin acknowledges that first-run review shows still have a large audience, but thinks their heyday has passed: ”I think (the format) has had its time.”
When ”Sneak Previews”-originally ”Opening Soon at a Theater Near You”-went national some 12 years ago, the show found a virtually untapped market. Hosts Siskel and Ebert hit the scene like gangbusters with their argumentative style, and people settled into their recliners to await a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
But in 1982, when soaring profits ignited disputes over paychecks, Siskel and Ebert took their act to Tribune Entertainment, where the show was called
”At the Movies.” They later left that show for Disney-owned Buena Vista and ”Siskel & Ebert & the Movies.”
But despite the fact that ”Sneak Previews” spinoffs have emerged and prospered over the years-including a Spanish-language version that can be seen on WCIU-Ch. 26 and in countless parodies-the show`s creators are proud to say they were the originators.
”When `Sneak Previews` started there was no full-length program reviewing movies,” Denny said. ”Now everybody does it.”
Not everyone is eager to jump on the video bandwagon, however, although the syndicated ”Inside Video: This Week,” featuring ”Entertainment Tonight” veterans Eric Burns and Paula McClure, premieres Sept. 23 on WPWR-Ch. 50.
”There are so many shows popping up with videos, we`re better off staying like we are,” said Larry Dieckhaus, executive producer of ”Siskel & Ebert & the Movies,” which occasionally devotes entire programs to video themes.
”I don`t agree with what `Sneak Previews` is doing,” said Joe Antelo, executive producer for ”At the Movies.” ”It`s redundant. We`re going to tie in videos to films we`re reviewing. Dixie (Whatley) and Rex (Reed) aren`t going to review videos just to be reviewing them.”
