DVD Sales - Ganging Up on the Competition

March 3, 2008

There were a number of new releases to chart this week, including the new number one, American Gangster, which sold 2.63 million units for $44.54 million in revenue. After one week, it is already the best selling DVD of the year. This isn't surprising as the film was the first $100 million hit to be released on the home market this year, but is an impressive start nonetheless.

Second place went to Michael Clayton with 579,000 units for sales of $10.08 million. Why did I get Married? lost more than 68% of its opening week sales, adding $5.29 million from $266,000 units and now has $20.08 million in revenue from 1.11 million units. We Own the Night held on a little better, down 64% to 206,000 units / $3.94 million for the week and 780,000 units / $14.82 million in total. The final film in the top five was Snow Buddies, which added 198,000 to its total sales of 1.96 million units for $36.85 million, which is very strong for a direct-to-DVD release.

There were a trio of other new releases to chart, starting with Rendition in seventh place with 133,000 units for opening week sales of $2.66 million. Chaos was right behind with 131,000 units / $2.07 million in sales. Finally, In the Valley of Elah opened in 14th place with 81,000 units to give it opening week sales of $1.49 million.

More news on the Format War, American Gangster helped HD DVD earn its first number one seller in a long, long time. However, this was not a surprise result as that film was the first $100 million hit to come out on High Definition day and date with the DVD. Overall, Blu-ray still won the week 77% to 23% with Michael Clayton being the best seller of the winning format. In fact, Michael Clayton performed much stronger in High Definition than it did on DVD; on DVD it was outsold close to 5 to 1 while in High Definition is was outsold barely more than 3 to 2.

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Filed under: Video Sales, Why Did I Get Married?, Michael Clayton, We Own the Night, Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, Chaos, Snow Buddies, American Gangster