HBO Home Entertainment

Logo used since late 2019

**HBO Home Entertainment** (formerly **Thorn EMI Video**, **Thorn EMI/HBO Video**, **HBO/Cannon Video**, **HBO Video** and **HBO Home Video**) is the home video division of Home Box Office, Inc., itself owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. HBO Home Entertainment is responsible for the distribution of original content made for HBO, such as television series, made-for-television films, miniseries and television specials. Since late 2019, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment handles the primary distribution of HBO's home media releases, with HBO Home Entertainment itself being demoted to a secondary distributor.

## Background

### Thorn EMI Video

Thorn EMI Video was established in 1980 and released its first titles the following year. Thorn EMI released films on video from various film companies including Orion Pictures (*First Blood*, *The Terminator*), New Line Cinema (*The Evil Dead*, *Xtro*), and Universal (*Bad Boys*, *Frances*) in the 1980s.

Thorn EMI joined HBO in November 1984 to create Thorn EMI/HBO Video.

In April 1986, Thorn EMI sold Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment and the film library, Thorn EMI Video, and ABC Cinemas to businessman Alan Bond. Bond, in turn, sold it to The Cannon Group a week later. HBO maintained an involvement the video company, which became HBO/Cannon Video. Cannon left operations and the company was eventually called HBO Video in 1987.

### HBO Home Entertainment

During the early 1980s, HBO had an agreement with Vestron Video to distribute some of HBO's made-for-cable films and specials (such as *The Terry Fox Story*); Vestron had been created by former HBO executive Austin Furst, who had been assigned to dismantle the assets of Time-Life Films.

On February 21, 1984, HBO launched its own home video unit, either as a subsidiary or joint venture, with options considering included either Vestron Video or Thorn EMI Video as its own joint venture prospects.

In November 1984, as the broader entertainment industry began to drop their objections to and begin releasing their films through the then-burgeoning home video marketplace, HBO signed a partnership with the home entertainment unit of Thorn EMI to form "Thorn EMI/HBO Video" to distribute independent films and HBO-produced programming. Thorn EMI signed distribution agreements with various mid-level and independent film production companies (such as Orion Pictures and New Line Cinema) that did not have their own home video units.

In August 1986, Cannon Films acquired Thorn EMI's interest in Thorn EMI/HBO Video, inherited from Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, which Time Inc. subsequently renamed "HBO/Cannon Video" upon transferring partial ownership of the unit. In September 1986, HBO had signed home video and pay cable television rights to product produced by Kings Road Entertainment for $65–70 million, and eight pictures will be covered under the agreement, extending through 1988, with home video rights assigned by itself to HBO/Cannon.

On November 12, 1986, Sports Illustrated, a co-owned property of Time Inc. and HBO/Cannon Video had inked a home video pact whereas HBO would produce videocassette versions of material that was originated by Sports Illustrated, with the launch titles that cost $20, which was pitched to the sell-through market and the run time would be 30–45 minutes, depending on the length of the Sports Illustrated video tape.

On November 26, 1986, HBO/Cannon Video had inked an agreement with De Laurentiis Entertainment Group for the exclusive home video and pay television rights to DEG's feature films between May 1987 and 1990 for a three-year pact, becoming the largest ever for their home video agreement, supplanting the 15-picture pact between HBO/Cannon and Orion Pictures, with films budgeted in the $9–9.6 million range.

On December 17, 1986, HBO/Cannon paid Carolco Pictures $43 million to bring back a pair of films, namely *Angel Heart* and *Extreme Prejudice* back to the production company, which then relicensed the home video rights to the two films passed by HBO/Cannon to International Video Entertainment, of which Carolco had a controlling interest in the IVE video distributor. In late December 1986, plans for over 23 films programming on the Cannon side of the video label, such as *Masters of the Universe* and *Surrender*, were bought back by Cannon, which was re-licensed to Warner Home Video, in order to earn a $75 million agreement using loans funded by financer Alan Bond.

HBO acquired Cannon's interest in the venture in April 1987, amid financial losses incurred by the film studio after an unsuccessful attempt at releasing a series of larger budget films that floundered in box office revenue; the unit was subsequently renamed "HBO Video". On April 22, 1987, HBO will fed its own video pipeline with at least eight (or 12) films resulting from a five-year co-production agreement with producer ITC Entertainment, and the whole overall package is worth $55 million, with budgets on each film would surpass $4.5 million, and domestic home video rights to the titles will go to a partner producing the particular program, thus HBO automatically has eight of them right off the bat, and gave HBO all pay cable rights in the U.S. and ITC all foreign rights and all free TV rights to the films.

The following week, on April 29, 1987, HBO Video decided to push rental releases to increase the wholesale action, which included the *Three for the Money* rental-driven campaign to hype the June release of *Hannah and Her Sisters*, July's release of *Something Wild* and August's release of *Three Amigos*, and spent $2 million on the campaign including $1 million in TV to support the $89.95 titles. That year, the company made a complicated situation that they would release the initial editions of two of the most popular Hemdale Film Corporation titles from 1986, including *Hoosiers* and *Platoon*, which was subsequently sued by Vestron Video for allegedly claiming it, and decided that the judge ordered HBO to recall all rental video cassettes of *Hoosiers* that was to be on the market since September 1987.

Over time, HBO Video, which eventually became "HBO Home Video" in January 1994, shifted focus away from releasing films from independent studios to releasing HBO's catalog of original programs and films on DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

HBO also had several sub-labels, including HBO Video Comedy Club (for comedy releases), HBO Kids Video (for kids and family releases), HBO/Savoy Video (for Savoy Pictures releases), HBO Sports Video (for sports releases) and Thames Video Collection (for Thames Television releases).

In addition, HBO Video also entered into various licensing deals with distributors such as Congress Video, GoodTimes Home Video, Video Treasures, and Promotional Concept Group, Inc. to distribute and re-issue HBO's content catalogs. The unit, renamed "HBO Home Entertainment" on September 5, 2009, eventually transferred the manufacturing of physical products to Warner Home Video.

## Logos

### Print logos

Thorn EMI VideoThorn EMI Video (inverted)Thorn EMI/HBO VideoThorn EMI/HBO Video (print)HBO/Cannon VideoHBO/Cannon Video (print)HBO Video (original)HBO Video (original) (print)HBO Home VideoHBO Home Video (white text)HBO Home Video (monochrome)HBO Home Video (print)HBO Video (2000s, 1)HBO Video (2000s, 1) (print)HBO Video (2000s, 2)HBO Video (2000s, 2) (print)HBO Home Entertainment (2009-2019)HBO Home Entertainment (2019-present)
## Sub-labels

* HBO Sports Video
* HBO Kids Video
* HBO/Savoy Video
* HBO Video Comedy Club

## See also

* HBO Video Comedy Club
* Thames Video Collection