Five of the top six films on this week's sales chart were new releases, including the overall number on film, Step Up 2 The Streets. That film sold 604,000 units for opening week sales of $10.50 million. Second place went to College Road Trip with sales of $8.03 million from 440,000 units while The Bank Job placed third with $6.93 million from 344,000 units. The only holdover in the top five was none other than Batman Begins, which sold 161,000 units for the week and generated $973,000 in spending. Penelope rounded out the top five with 129,000 units sold and $2.57 million while Shutter was right behind it with 117,000 units sold and $2.10 million.

The only other new release to chart was The Birds of Prey - The Complete Series, which landed in 20th place with 43,000 units, but its $1.25 million in revenue would have placed it 13th.

Without a single top-of-the-line Blu-ray release, the format gave back some of the gains it made last week as it was down nearly 10% to $7.6 million. However, DVD sales were also down, but not by as much, and the ratios remained roughly the same at 6.4%. This is actually not as bad as I feared, and that bodes well for when The Dark Knight hits Blu-ray.

- C.S.Strowbridge

Date posted: 2008-07-31