Blockbuster Entertainment Awards

The first annual awards were held on June 3, 1995, at the Pantages Theatre^[3] and broadcast on June 6.^[4] The idea for the awards show came from Blockbuster marketing executive Brian Woods,^[5] who worked on the project for two years.^[6] Blockbuster reportedly saw creating the awards as a way of promoting both the company and also the performers whose records and films were sold in their stores.

We wanted to have entertainers who are truly public favorites, like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone or Jean-Claude Van Damme, people who do big box office and big business in home video, but are not in the foreseeable future likely to be nominated for an Academy Award.

CBS signed a contract to broadcast the awards in late 1994, and Ken Ehrlich was hired to produce. Winners were determined by votes cast by customers in Blockbuster stores. The ballot consisted of the year's three top-grossing films, videos, and music albums^[5] in 33 categories.^[6] Over 1.5 million votes were cast and approximately 10 million people watched the awards on television. The ceremony was hosted by Cindy Crawford and William Baldwin. Celebrities who attended the ceremony included Bill Pullman, George Clooney, Kurt Russell, Steve Martin, Jennifer Tilly, Melanie Griffith, Danny Glover, Alfre Woodard, and David Spade.^[4] Jim Carrey, who won three awards, was one of the few winners who thanked voters for his award, stating: "I'm thankful for this award, even if you rented my tapes just to show the guy behind the counter that you rent more than porn videos." Eileen Fitzpatrick of Billboard magazine stated that the awards show was "surprisingly entertaining", and supported Blockbuster for "raising the status of home video". Fitzpatrick questioned the idea of presenting awards for films in both theatrical and video releases, saying it did not make much sense, as almost all films nominated had been on video for several months. This caused confusion for recipients, many of whom did not understand what award they were getting. Shortly after Sandra Bullock received the award for Best Action / Adventure / Thriller Actress in Video for the film Speed, she was named the winner for the same film in the theatrical category, and "literally didn't know whether she was coming on or going off the stage."^[7]

The 2nd Blockbuster Entertainment Awards were held on March 6, 1996^[8] at the Pantages Theatre,^[9] and hosted by Kelsey Grammer. As Blockbuster was owned by Viacom at the time, who also owned Paramount Pictures, MTV, Big Ticket Entertainment and Worldvision Enterprises, producer Ken Ehrlich stated the awards "bent over backward" to avoid any connections with Paramount, in order to give the awards more credibility. Paramount productions were nominated for only 5 of the 49 nominations, though coverage of the awards switched from CBS to the United Paramount Network.^[10] Unlike the first ceremony, which was broadcast as a pre-recorded special, the second ceremony was aired live.^[11]

The 3rd Blockbuster Entertainment Awards were held on March 11, 1997, at the Pantages Theatre. Over 11 million votes were cast, which made it the largest publicly-voted awards presentation in history at the time.^[12] Reba McEntire, Tony Rich, Blackstreet and Garth Brooks performed live.

The 4th Annual Blockbuster Entertainment Awards were held on March 10, 1998, at the Pantages Theatre. Once again over 11 million votes were cast. Boyz II Men, Garth Brooks, Mariah Carey and Savage Garden performed live.^[9]

The 5th Blockbuster Entertainment Awards were held on June 16, 1999^[13] at the Shrine Auditorium.^[14][15] It was the first ceremony to air on Fox, where approximately 6.5 million people watched the awards on television.^[16] Harry Connick Jr. described his nomination for Best Actor for the critically panned film Hope Floats as "absolutely insane".^[17]

The 6th Blockbuster Entertainment Awards were held on May 9, 2000^[18] at the Shrine Auditorium, and for the first time presented awards for video games in addition to music and film.^[19] Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys both received two awards.^[20]

The 7th and final Blockbuster Entertainment Awards were held on April 10, 2001, at the Shrine Auditorium.^[2] Approximately 4.5 million people watched the awards on television.^[16] Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow, Joe, Mystikal, LeAnn Rimes and Ricky Martin performed live at the event.^[21]

These were the categories presented at the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards.

In November 2001, after having run for seven consecutive years, Blockbuster announced they were canceling the awards following concerns after the September 11 attacks, stating: "Due to the uncertainty of the times, we can't predict consumer response to our show, nor audience behavior—especially media viewing habits—all of which are being affected by world events."^[22][23] Blockbuster stated their decision to cancel the awards was influenced by the fact that the 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards had to be rescheduled twice following security concerns after the September 11 attacks, and that when they did air, their ratings were 22% lower than the previous year.^[16]