Eight new releases reached the top 30 on the sales chart this week, and six of them finished in the top seven. The new top-selling DVD was State of Play with 345,000 units sold, which was enough to generate $5.51 million in consumer spending at retail. Heroes - Season Three placed second in terms of units sold with 296,000, but thanks to its TV on DVD pricing, it was clearly the highest grossing DVD of the week with $11.10 million in sales. Hannah Montana the Movie fell to third place with 269,000 units and $4.71 million in spending to lift its totals to 1.96 million units and $33.24 million. Bring it On - Fight to the Finish landed in fourth place, which was a surprisingly strong start, and the film sold 254,000 units for $4.32 million. Supernatural - Season Four opened in fifth place in terms of units sold with 238,000, but was second in terms of dollars at $8.67 million.

Earth opened in sixth place with 206,000 units / $3.50 million, which is less than the original TV mini-series made. Two and a Half Men was right behind in seventh place with 100,000 units sold and $2.36 million. Desperate Housewives Season Five was well back in 14th place with 78,000 units sold, but thanks to its hefty price, which is common to TV on DVD releases, it generated $2.93 million in sales. The final new release to chart this week was Terry Fator - Live from Las Vegas, which placed 23rd with 53,000 units / $541,000.

Blu-rays bounced back this week, up nearly 50% to $15.8 million for the week, which was 93% higher than the same week last year. Compared to DVD, Blu-ray represented 11.3% of total sales and 11% of the top 20 comparison. That's quite a turnaround from last week, which saw Blu-ray nearly hit the low for the year. This is even more impressive when you note that there wasn't a marquee release this week and the two best-selling Blu-rays were catalogue titles. Granted, Gladiator and Braveheart are not your typical catalogue releases, and both films sold more than 100,000 units on High Definition, but it was still a relatively slow week for blockbuster releases. Earth did sell 70,000 units while State of Play sold 50,000.

- C.S.Strowbridge

Date posted: 2009-09-15