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Hollywood Video

US video rental chain

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ5883012 ↗
Source-derived summary

Hollywood Entertainment Corp., more commonly known as Hollywood Video, was an American video rental store chain based in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded by Mark Wattles in 1988, the chain would quickly expand following the company's initial public offering in 1993, which led to them being the largest direct competitor to Blockbuster in the urban market.

Towards the end of the 1990s, Hollywood Video was the first major chain to introduce DVD rentals in their stores, and would expand into the internet with the purchase of Reel.com in July 1998. However, following the rise of video on demand services in the early 2000s, the company began to experience losses. As a result, the company would establish GameCrazy, a video game retailer, in an attempt to enter the video game market.

Following a hostile takeover attempt by Blockbuster, Hollywood Entertainment Corp. would merge with Movie Gallery, Inc. for $1.2 billion in April 2005. While this acquisition initially boosted Movie Gallery's profits, the newly assumed debt would contribute to the company's bankruptcy, and eventual liquidation in 2010.

In December 2011, the chain's website would relaunch as an entertainment news blog.

Editorial summary

“Hollywood Video” enters the record as uS video rental chain. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hollywood, Video and video can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1988, 1993, 1998, 2005—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1988. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Hollywood, Video and video.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Hollywood Video” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hollywood, Video and video provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5883012. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 1993, 1998 and 2005.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hollywood Video”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hollywood Video primary sources, Hollywood Video archive and Hollywood research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hollywood Video”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hollywood Video” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.