Six new releases reached the top 30 on this week's sales chart, and four of those six reached the top five. This includes High School Musical 3 - Senior Year, which sold 1.50 million units while generating $26.55 million in consumer spending for the second fastest start of the year. The only DVD to sell more units during its opening week of sales was Madagascar 2 - Escape to Africa, which slipped to second place this week with 456,000 units sold. After three week of release, the film has sold 3.97 million units for sales of $64.58 million. Body of Lies opened in second place with 392,000 units and $7.00 million in sales. Changeling settled into fourth place with 281,000 units / $4.64 million, while Quarantine rounded out the top five with 222,000 units / $4.43 million.

Religulous opened in ninth place with 96,000 units / $1.93 million, which is strong for a documentary. Meanwhile, Still Waiting... opened in 12th place with 73,000 units / $1.03 million, which is respectable for a direct-to-DVD sequel.

Strangely, while the Blu-ray releases this week were not strong, the overall sales increased by 23% to $13.3 million. This represented 8.6% of total home market sales, and 10% of the top 20 comparison. It also represents a 29% increase from the same weekend last year. The best selling DVD, High School Musical 3 - Senior Year, managed just 5% of total sales as High Definition releases, which works out to roughly 80,000 units. This time last year, that would have been an amazing start, especially for a kids movie. However, it was only enough for second place this year as Body of Lies sold an estimated 100,000 units. Meanwhile, Quarantine placed third with close to 50,000 units.

- C.S.Strowbridge

Date posted: 2009-03-03