Sith Storm to the Top of the Charts
November 12, 2005
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was able to take first place on the rental charts this weekend, but its $7.64 million in DVD rentals was rather anemic. However, this is all part of the Fanboy Effect, those that were interested in seeing the movie bought it instead of renting, which kept the rental figures low but boosted the sales figures. Combined sales for the DVD and game were $210 million worldwide in its first week of release, but there were no breakdowns given either by market or the split between DVD and Game sales.
Bewitched remained in second place thanks to a much lower than average 14% drop-off as the film added $5.96 million to its two-week total of $13.39 million. Batman Begins was not so lucky as it fell 29% to $5.58 million for the weekend and $25.46 during its run. Next up is House of Wax with $5.06 million for the week and $11.91 million during its run, which is roughly a third of what the film earned domestically. Rounding out the top five was Herbie: Fully Loaded, which had the worst week-to-week drop-off in the top five at 30% pushing its weekly haul to just $3.84 million.
There were only two other new releases to chart this week with The Perfect Man just missing the top five with $3.43 million in combined rentals. Lastly, Millions finished in 19th place with $1.36 million in combined rentals. For both films their opening week take represented just over 20% of their total domestic run.
This week, the overall rental market climbed 2.7% to $144.1 million, but that's still 3.7% lower than the same week last year. And year-to-date 2005 is still 5.0% behind 2004 at $6.5 billion.
Over on the sales charts things were weird this week thanks to the effect Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith had on the market place. As I've already mentioned, it cleaned up on the sales chart easily taking first place. That pushed Batman Begins into second place. Third place went to Office Space - Special Edition with Flair, which is an amazing result for a Special Edition DVD. Bewitched dropped to fourth during its second week of release.
In fifth place was Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, which is surprising since it wasn't a special edition or anything, it just rode on the coattails of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Doing the same was Attack of the Clones with a sixth place finish and Original Trilogy Box Set in 14th place.
Back to other new releases, The War of the Worlds - Special Collector's Edition opened in 12th place while The Perfect Man finished in 15th place.
There was not a single new release to make the top ten on the TV on DVD charts, in fact, the top three were the same as last week: Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin - The Untold Story, Alias - The Complete Fourth Season. The other old-timer, Lost - The Complete First Season. Firefly - The Complete Series climbed into fourth place during its 100 week of release and was able to lift Serenity's DVD release to 18th place on the Amazon Top 100 chart. Given the much better than expected DVD pre-orders, the odds of a sequel are definitely increasing. Rounding out the top five was another short-lived TV series, Arrested Development - The Complete Season Season. Okay, it isn't official yet, but Fox has pulled the show for all of November, which is the first sweeps session of the year. Chances are the show will be cancelled before the year is over and the only way to avoid that fate is if the DVD sales are incredible enough to change the network's mind.
Unfortunately, the TV on DVD rental chart was not updated this week but hopefully that part of this column will return next weekend.
Filed under: Star Wars Ep. III: Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins, Herbie: Fully Loaded, Bewitched, House of Wax, Serenity, The Perfect Man, Millions