'truman' Video Takes Podium As No. 1 Rental

"The Truman Show" gave the video rental industry a lift last week with $5.99 million in video rental revenue in its first week, according to VSDA VidTrac.

Revenue for the Paramount Home Video release starring Jim Carrey was well ahead of Warner Home Video's second-ranked "Lethal Weapon 4" with $4.38 million in its fifth week in video stores. "Lethal Weapon 4" has amassed nearly $38 million in rental revenue.

"The Truman Show" was also the only new release to rank among the top 10 renters for last week, even though many of the rest of the pack has been in stores for about two months.

Overall rental revenue for the week was down to $168.84 million, the lowest in a month but still 5.2% above the comparable week last year.

Universal Studios Home Video's "Out of Sight" brought in another $3.4 million in its second week, followed by Buena Vista Home Video's "Six Days Seven Nights" with $3.36 million in its sixth week of release.

New Line Home Video's "Blade" dropped from second place to fifth with $3.04 million in its fourth week. Warner's "The Negotiator" dropped one spot to sixth after eight weeks of release with another $2.65 million.

Among the biggest new titles this week are PolyGram's "Return to Paradise," Universal's "Kissing a Fool" and Buena Vista Home Video's "Mafia" and "Smoke Signals," the latter from Miramax.

VidTrac, a video rental tracking service of the Video Software Dealers Assn. trade group, collects point-of-sale transactions from a representative sample of 10,000 video specialty stores, including Blockbuster, among a total of nine of the 10 biggest video chains. A VSDA VidTrac chart of the previous week's 10 best-renting titles is published each week by The Hollywood Reporter.