Sony Entertainment (Modified Screens)

1st Screen (June 29, 1994-December 12, 1995; 1999; November 19, 2002-December 26, 2005)

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Visuals: Same as Paramount and Universal's modified screen.

Variants:

• On the 1997 VHS of Masterminds, the text is in a different font and split into two lines.
• On the 1999 VHS of Marie Baie des Anges, the text is in a rounder font.
• On the 2002 VHS of Sunshine State, the screen is squeezed.
• On the 2005 VHS of Little Black Book, "this" is replaced with "your TV."
• On the 2005 VHS of Lords of Dogtown, the text is in all-caps and somewhat rearranged.

Technique: Fading effects.

Audio: None.

Availability:

• It debuted on the 1994 VHS release of Philadelphia.
• It also appears on some 1994-95 Sony tapes such as My Girl 2, I'll Do Anything, Legends of the Fall, Princess Caraboo, The Road to Wellville, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and First Knight.
• The screen reappeared on the 1999 releases of Cat Ballou and Marie Baie des Anges, and a decent number of 2002-05 tapes such as Sunshine State, Trapped, Auto Focus, Maid in Manhattan, Basic, Spider-Man 2, The Forgotten, Christmas with the Kranks, Stealth, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo and Into the Blue (the last overall tape to use it).
• This also appeared on prints of Sony movies offered for free via Comcast On Demand in the early-2000s.

2nd Screen (January 17, 1995-October 9, 2007; 2009-2010)

Visuals: A black screen fades in reading: "This film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit this screen." It fades out after a few seconds.

Variant: DVDs use a "frozen" version of the screen.

Technique: Fading effects.

Audio: None.

Availability:

• This can be found on a large variety of Sony Pictures VHS tapes from the 1995 VHS of Wolf until their second-last release, Zathura, in 2006 (specifically most Columbia and TriStar movies, as features released outside of them use no modified screen), and many full-screen DVD releases (including titles that were solely available in the full-screen format, such as The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, 84 Charing Cross Road, The Trouble with Angels, both the 1997 and 2005 DVD editions of Matilda, the 2002 Deluxe Edition of Stuart Little, and a 2005 one-sided reprint of Air Force One, among many others).
• While prints of Panic Room that feature opening previews contain the screen, for unknown reasons, it doesn't appear on prints without them.
• It makes surprise appearances on Paramount's 2001 VHS of Enemy at the Gates, FXM's print of April Love (a 1957 20th Century Fox film) and the UMD Video for PSP release of The Karate Kid (2010), also bundled with LittleBigPlanet.
• It also appears on the fullscreen disc of Anchor Bay's DVD of Last Chance Harvey.
• This also appeared on prints of Sony movies offered for free via Comcast On Demand in the mid-2000s, likely because of VHS-based transfers being used.
• Curiously, while the screen does appear on side B of the 2000 DVD of All About My Mother, the version on that side is matted to 1.66:1, which is still a form of widescreen.

3rd Screen (April 1-July 22, 1997)

Visuals: Same as the Warner Bros. modified screen.

Technique: Fading effects.

Audio: None.

Availability: Seen on the 1997 VHS releases of Hamlet, Lone Star and The Spitfire Grill, all of which were Castle Rock Entertainment releases co-distributed by Turner Home Entertainment (by then folded into Warner Home Video).

4th Screen (October 14, 1997)

Visuals: Same as the New Line Home Entertainment modified screen.

Technique: Fading effects.

Audio: None.

Availability: Seen on the 1997 VHS release of The Whole Wide World, a film which Fine Line Features distributed (hence why this modified screen is used).

5th Screen (February 21, 2006-)

Visuals: On a black background is the following text in Times New Roman Bold font: "The following film has been modified from its original version. It has been..."

• "...formatted to fit this screen."
• "...formatted to fit this screen and edited for content."
• "...formatted to fit this screen, to run in the time allotted, and edited for content."
• "...edited to run in the time allotted and for content."
• "...edited to run in the time allotted."
• "...edited for content."

Technique: Fading effects.

Audio: None.

Availability:

• It debuted on the DVD of Rent and the VHS and DVD releases of Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild.
• It appears on some full-screen DVDs of the era (without the fade in and fade out). The other variants appear on syndicated and network prints of Sony movies as well as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Trifecta Entertainment & Media-owned Starz movies.
• It was also seen at the start of a 2009 Disney Channel airing of Lionsgate's Akeelah and the Bee.
• This also appeared on prints of Sony movies offered for free via Comcast On Demand starting in the late-2000s.