10 Things You Didn't Know About The Adult Movie Industry

4. Mom And Pop Video Stores Relied On Hard-Core To Survive

It€™s a familiar story: a soulless corporation opens a new store in the neighbourhood, attracting customers from mom-and-pop operations with lower prices and more variety. But during Blockbuster€™s tenure as king of the high street rental chains, many independent stores took to renting out porn as a way to make ends meet . This was in part due to Blockbuster€™s refusal to carry X-rated material, but the economics of purchasing hard-core videos was also a factor. Because they cost so little to produce, a new hard-core title might retail at $20 and rent for $4 a night, whereas a Hollywood movie would retail at three times the price yet rent for $3 per night. During the mid-90s, some 25,000 stores across the US operated in this manner.