The Ghostbusters “videocassette” was released on October 31, 1985, one day after the home video release of Beverly Hills Cop. The latter, in a bold move by Paramount Pictures, was priced at $29.95, while the former (a Columbia Picture) was priced at the standard-for-the-time $79.95. Says this September 1985 Los Angeles Times article:
It’s hard to imagine `Ghostbusters’ outselling `Cop,’ considering both are aimed at the same audience. In fact, `Cop’ will probably be stealing customers from `Ghostbusters.’
In fact, Ghostbusters set a record for first-day sales (400,000 units), beat the following year by Rambo (425,000 units), although both Beverly Hills Cop and Star Trek III, also priced at $29.95, went on to beat Ghostbusters in total year sales. Check out the February 1986 Gainesville Sun article below for some interesting figures.
(Original image via Reddit)
That was the first prerecorded videotape I had, but in this case it came free with my RCA VCR (it was one out of of several movies you could choose from). This was probably in late 1986, so by then it was likely an attempt to clear old stock.
Wow, Rambo FB2 beat Ghostbusters?? And that movie was wack (IMO)!