DVD Sales - 101 New Releases
March 17, 2008
New releases were again plentiful this week with nine reaching the top 30 and three of them sweeping the top few spots. The best of the best was 101 Dalmatians, which sold 1.36 million units during its first week for $21.64 million in revenue.
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium was well back in second place with 442,000 units and $8.08 million in sales. Into the Wild opened in third place with $6.54 million from 320,000 units. The best of the holdovers was Beowulf, which placed fourth for the week selling 296,000 units for $5.61 million to lift its overall numbers to 1.41 million units and $26.63 million. Rounding out the top five was American Gangster, which sold an additional 278,000 units this week to give it totals of 3.74 million units and $62.98 million after three.
The best of the rest of the openers was Awake which placed seventh with 202,000 units / $4.27 million during its opening week. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who -- the TV special -- only sold 83,000 units for sales of $1.24 million, which was still enough for 11th place. The film version did much better at the box office. Doctor Dolittle 4 - Tail to the Chief opened in 17th place with just 64,000 units / $1.16 million, which should spell the end of the franchise. There were a pair of new releases that landed in 19th and 20th places with Pistol Whipped selling just over 58,000 units while Things We Lost in the Fire sold just under 58,000 units. Lastly there's My Friends Tigger & Pooh - Friendly Trails, which opened in 22nd place with 55,000 units sold and $875,000 in revenue.
More news on the Format War: Blu-ray won the week, again, but with a rather low market share of 65%. Additionally, Beowulf climbed into top spot on the High Definition sales chart, giving HD DVD two wins in the past three weeks. However, there are some mitigating circumstances. First of all, the rankings are by units and not dollars and there have been widespread reports of firesales with first-run HD DVD releases going for under $10: American Gangster and Beowulf on HD DVD at half the cost of the regular DVD. Secondly, Blu-ray has not had a marquee release in a while with The Game Plan being the biggest box office hit to come out day-and-date this year and the format's sales have been spread out over a number of smaller releases. With the number of HD DVD releases drying up, Blu-ray should take a 90% share shortly, in which case the market numbers become meaningless. Hopefully Blu-ray will grow fast enough that its market share vs. DVD will become calculable before the end of the year.
Filed under: Video Sales, Beowulf, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Into the Wild, Awake, Things We Lost in the Fire, Pistol Whipped, Horton Hears a Who (TV Special), My Friends Tigger & Pooh - Friendly Tails, Doctor Dolittle: Tail to the Chief, American Gangster