Baltimore City firefighters help pump hot sales of 'Ladder 49'

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Mar 15, 2005 by James Mosher

A movie about Baltimore City firefighters is heating up cash registers at area video retailers.

First-week DVD and VHS sales of Ladder 49 totaled $3.5 million, in part to demand from firefighters. The DVD's producer called the sales an immense success.

Most of my people are going out and buying two copies - one to watch and one to put away, Baltimore City Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. said. There's a lot of excitement about owning a personal copy because it's not just a movie. It's not just a DVD. It's about us.

The DVD contains special sections called Everyday Heroes: Real Stories from Real Firefighters, and The Making of 'Ladder 49.' The extras, mostly city firefighters, have whipped enthusiasm to a level similar to when filming began in Baltimore two years ago.

It does for firefighters what 'Top Gun' did for Navy pilots,'' Goodwin said.

The DVD became available in stores March 8 and is priced at about $25 to $30 plus tax. The Hollywood Video store in Glen Burnie sold all 30 copies available for sale during the first week. All 150 copies available for rental were rented out yesterday, store manager James Goode said.

It's doing very, very well, he said.

The Blockbuster Video store at the Anneslie Shopping Center in Towson reported its 100-plus copies of Ladder 49 were all rented by early Saturday.

It's a fairly big seller, said Eric Hurd, a sales representative at Borders Books Music & Cafe in Hagerstown. He declined to give numbers, citing a company policy.

The Maryland content of the Ladder 49 makes it more desirable to his clientele, Hurd added.

We are extremely proud of Ladder 49's immense success on DVD and we look forward to its continued success as an enduring story of brotherhood, said Lori MacPherson, vice president of brand marketing and product management at Buena Vista Home Entertainment Inc., the DVD's producer.

More than 300 city firefighters were used in the filming of Ladder 49. Goodwin plays himself in about five or six scenes but doesn't have any lines. Lt. Mark Yant was technical adviser.

The response has been incredible, Yant said. Besides the interest in the city, I'm getting calls from overseas and all over. People in England and Finland want to know all about the Baltimore City Fire Department.

Most shooting was done at the vacant Gorsuch Fire Station in Northeast Baltimore. Filming finished in July 2003. Post-production work, which involved Yant, went on until December.

Ladder 49 was released in 3,260 theaters on Oct. 1, 2004. It opened at No. 2 during its first week, taking in $22.1 million. It spent six weeks in the top 10. It finished with about $74 million in box office, according to a list on www.amazon.com, making it the 36th biggest picture of the year.

Ladder 49'' is inevitably compared with Hollywood's last firefighter movie, Backdraft,'' a Universal Studios production. The premise of that 1991 film left many firefighters, including Goodwin, cold.

That movie was about a fireman who is also an arsonist, the chief said. Thankfully, I've never had to deal with such a thing in real life.

Ladder 49 is director Jay Russell's second Baltimore picture. The city was also the backdrop for his 2002 film Tuck Everlasting.

Goodwin is a third-generation city firefighter. He shared photographs and mementos from his father and grandfather with Russell. The objects unexpectedly made it on to the DVD.

``I was moved beyond words,'' Goodwin said.