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Former Hollywood Entertainment CEO wants his company back

13 December 2007 0:13 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 7 comments

Mark Wattles, founder and former CEO of Hollywood Entertainment (parent company of Hollywood Video), is hoping to force Movie Gallery to at least give him a chance to buy his former company back. Movie Gallery, which is working on an reorganizing after filing for bankruptcy, purchased Hollywood Entertainment more than two years ago for more than $1 billion.

Despite selling the chain, Wattles retained 20 Hollywood Video locations, paying Movie Gallery $900,000 in royalties annually to keep using the name. Until recently Wattles was trying to force Movie Gallery to buy the stores from him as stipulated in the contract he signed with the company. While Wattles has completely dropped the issue of selling the stores, Movie Gallery is now trying to cut all ties to him without buying the stores.

Based on court papers filed December 11 Wattles, and a group of potential investors, has another idea. The papers indicate Wattles �is a potential investor in connection with a possible competing reorganization plan.� It's possible, if not likely, that such a plan would involve putting Wattles in the driver seat as CEO of the company. That might explain why Movie Gallery would want to get as far clear of him as possible.

The papers, which were an objection to a motion filed by Movie Gallery lawyers petitioning the court to allow them to simply disassociate themselves with Wattles current company Boards. The objection questions Movie Gallery's motivation, stating �It appears that the motive for the filing of the rejection motion may be to disincentivize competitive bidding or as retribution.�

Source: Video Business

Permalink to this article

Movie Gallery files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (18 October 2007)

Movie Gallery forced to close over 500 stores (25 September 2007)

Movie Gallery expresses "substantial doubt" as to whether it can continue to operate (12 August 2007)

Movie Gallery to offer online DVD rentals (19 March 2007)

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Discuss this article!
DXR88 (Member) 13 December 2007 10:55
Mark mabey you shouldent have been so quik to Wattles away your furtune huh. suck's for you buddy [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 13 December 2007 14:15
Movie gallery is in shambles they would be better off trying to sell it off and gain some quick cash to inject on the recreation of movie gallery. [ + quote]
gallagher (Member) 13 December 2007 16:43
They all suck . . . [ + quote]
6Ripper9 (Junior Member) 13 December 2007 19:34
All video rental stores suck. I don't know how MG operates in the US, but I'm assuming the Canadian ones have the same rules. You rent a movie, and if you're late returning it, even by 1 minute, you're dinged a full rental fee. Here in Canada, we had VHQ (Video Headquarters), and if you were late, you only paid half the original rental fee. And $10 to rent a damn 360/PS3 game? That's just crap. Well, PS3 games I can see paying more because they are Blu-Ray discs, but 360 games are still on DVD, so why $10? (One Movie Gallery employee actually argued with me for half an hour saying that 360 games were on HD DVD). I prefer Zip.ca (CDN equivilant to NetFlix) and GetGames.ca. No late fees, and very reasonable membership fees. [ + quote]
Gnawnivek (Newbie) 14 December 2007 12:29
Wow, people actually believe X360 games are on HD media? I can understand that the games are in HD, but not the medium it's stored on. [ + quote]
6Ripper9 (Junior Member) 14 December 2007 12:54
*Originally posted by Gnawnivek:* Wow, people actually believe X360 games are on HD media? I can understand that the games are in HD, but not the medium it's stored on. Lol, yeah. The argument ended with me telling her to put the disc in the store dvd player to prove it it a dvd, because if it were as HD DVD, it wouldn't have played. See, PS2 and XBOX 1 games all say what type of disc they are on the back of the case, but not so on the 360, so for someone who wouldn't otherwise know the difference, it can be an easy mistake. [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 24 December 2007 0:36
*Originally posted by ZippyDSM:* Movie gallery is in shambles they would be better off trying to sell it off and gain some quick cash to inject on the recreation of movie gallery. Ditto. [ + quote]