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IN HONOR OF JULY 4TH: SURVEY BY BLOCKBUSTER® REVEALS AMERICA'S MOST PATRIOTIC FILMS

Holiday is the Fourth Busiest Day of the Year at BLOCKBUSTER

DALLAS, July 1, 1998 -- What better way to celebrate the 4th of July then to participate in one of America's favorite leisure time activities: renting movies. To celebrate the country's birthday, BLOCKBUSTER commissioned a survey to find out what movies make people most proud to be an American.

"It may be the Fourth of July, but it is also the fourth busiest day of the year at BLOCKBUSTER," said Allen Klose, vice president of market research. "Long holiday weekends bring in our members, with New Years being the busiest, followed by Christmas and then Thanksgiving."

So what movies are Americans proud about? What else other than Independence Day - the action-adventure film starring Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman - which received 32 percent of the votes. The second most patriotic film, with 11 percent, was Born on the Fourth of July, the drama which stars Tom Cruise as a disabled Vietnam veteran. And Yankee Doodle Dandy, the 1942 film starring James Cagney and just honored by the American Film Institute as the 100th best American film in the last 100 years, was voted the third most patriotic film.

In a trend that is also found in American history, 63 percent of the votes went to movies that portray America or Americans as the underdogs. Forty percent voted for movies where the President was the main character and 30 percent voted for movies involving a war hero as the main character.

The ten most patriotic films include:

  1. INDEPENDENCE DAY
  2. BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY
  3. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
  4. AIR FORCE ONE
  5. FORREST GUMP
  6. GLORY
  7. PATTON
  8. APOLLO 13
  9. THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT
  10. THE LONGEST DAY

Blockbuster operates approximately 6,000 Blockbuster Video and 400 Blockbuster Music neighborhood entertainment stores in the United States, its territories and 26 other countries and may be accessed internationally at www.blockbuster.com. Blockbuster is a unit of Viacom Inc., one of the world's largest entertainment and publishing companies and a leading force in nearly every segment of the international media marketplace.

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