Our DVD and Blu-ray sales estimates are based on weekly retail surveys, which we use to build a weekly market share estimate for each title we are tracking. The market share is converted into a weekly sales estimate based on industry reports on the overall size of the market, including reports published in Media Play News.

For example, if our weekly retail survey estimates that a particular title sold 1% of all units that week, and the industry reports sales of 1,500,000 units in total, we will estimate 15,000 units were sold of that title. The consumer spending estimate is based on the average sales price for the title in the retailers we survey.

We refine our estimates from week to week as more data becomes available. In particular, we adjust weekly sales figures for the quarter once the total market estimates are published by the Digital Entertainment Group. Figures will therefore fluctuate each week, and totals for individual titles can go up or down as we update our estimates.

Because sales figures are estimated based on sampling, they will be more accurate for higher-selling titles.

Blu-ray Sales: Finding the Source of the Problem

August 12th, 2011

It was a slow week on the home market, especially on Blu-ray, where it was a rare week suffering from year-over-year declines. But more on that in a bit. The number one selling Blu-ray was Source Code with 189,000 units. It was a little disappointing on DVD and its opening week Blu-ray ratio was just under 33%, acceptable, but not great. It was visual enough that upgrading to High Definition wasn't a bad choice, but second-tier enough that I would understand if a lot of people just didn't want to bother with the extra price. More...

DVD Sales: Decoding the Home Market

August 9th, 2011

It was a really slow week on the home market with only two new releases reaching the top 30. One those was Source Code, which led the way with 386,000 units / $5.54 million. More...

DVD and Blu-ray Releases for July 26th, 2011

July 25th, 2011

Summer time at the box office is amazing. From the first weekend in May until sometime in August, there is usually an average of one $100 million dollar movie released per week. This year will have at least three months in a row with at least one $100 million film. On the home market, on the other hand, summer time is crappy. This year has been particularly tiresome, as the spring wasn't a fun time at the box office. The biggest release this week is Source Code, which was only a midlevel hit. To be fair, it is one of the best-reviewed wide releases of the year. On the other hand, neither the DVD nor the Blu-ray are exactly overloaded with extras. More...

Per Theater Chart: Thor's Lonely on Top

May 10th, 2011

Thor was the only film to top the $10,000 mark on the per theater chart with an average of $16,618 in just under 4,000 theaters. Fast Five did come reasonably close to that mark with an average of $8,860, while the best limited release was Cave of Forgotten Dreams with $8,059. More...

Fast Five Laps Competition

May 2nd, 2011

There's finally reason to celebrate at the box office as Fast Five surpassed even the high end expectations and helped the overall box office numbers to their best levels of the year at $159 million. This was up 17% from last weekend and was a stunning 56% improvement over the same weekend last year. Granted, 2011 still lags behind 2010 by $500 million at $3.04 billion to $3.54 billion, but this is great news in the short term, and perhaps its a sign of strength to come. More...

Weekend Estimates: Fast Five Has Biggest 2011 Opening By Miles

May 1st, 2011

After four months fretting about poor box office performance, we finally have an out-and-out success to celebrate. Fast Five has opened with an estimated $83.6 million, according to Universal's figures released on Sunday, which makes it not only the biggest opener of the year (with more than double the debut of the previous record-holder, Rio), but will take the record for the biggest weekend in April, topping the previous entry in the franchise, Fast & Furious (see top April weekends). Perhaps the message in all this is not so much that the industry is dying as that moviegoers haven't had anything to get excited about. More...

Weekend Predictions: Going for the Hat Trick

April 28th, 2011

Analysts are optimistic this week, and for good reason. Not only is one of the most anticipated films of the spring opening this week, it is opening with better than expected reviews and with buzz that is growing at the right time. There's an outside chance that the number one film this year will earn more than the top ten films earned this weekend last year. Even if the top film misses expectations by a 50% margin, 2011 should still earn its third victory in a row in the year-over-year comparison. More...