The Longest Yard easily won the weekly race to the top of the Rental Charts with $9.54 million in DVD rentals and $810,000 in VHS rentals for a total of $10.35 million.

Fever Pitch remained a distant second with $4.87 million for the week and $11.27 million during its run. Crash fell from first to third, down 28% for the week as $4.68 million and already has $20.13 million in total rentals. Coming in fourth was Monster-In-Law in fourth week of release with $4.30 during the week and $29.89 million in total. Rounding out the top five was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which added $4.18 million to its $10.06 million two-week total.

Only two other new releases made it onto the charts and they were Mindhunters, which finished in seventh place with $2.32 million and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, which finished in ninth place with $1.99 million in total rentals.

Overall the box office was down just 0.3% for the week at $125.3 million, but that was down a massive 16.6% on a year-to-year basis. Year-to-date, 2005 has brought in $5.6 billion in total rentals, down 5.3% from the same period last year.

The Longest Yard also led the DVD sales charts ahead of fellow newcomers Desperate Housewives - The Complete First Season and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy dropped down to fourth during its second week of release just ahead of Fever Pitch.

There were a few other new releases of note, including the seventh place Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus 3-D, which slipped in under my radar and didn't even get mentioned on the DVD Release Reviews. Battlestar Galactica - Season One came in 11th place while Mallrats - 10th Anniversary Edition finished in 13th. Rounding out a busy week were Bob Dylan - No Direction Home and Mindhunters, which finished in 17th and 19th places respectively.

Since it finished in second place on the overall sales chart, it's no surprise that Desperate Housewives - The Complete First Season topped the TV on DVD chart. That pushed Lost - The Complete First Season into second place ahead of Battlestar Galactica - Season One. Two holdovers, Smallville - The Complete Fourth Season and Da Ali G Show - The Complete Second Season, rounded out the top five.

The only other new release in the top ten was The Pretender - The Complete Second Season, which opened in sixth place.

Submitted by: C.S.Strowbridge

Date posted: 2005-10-01