DVD Sales: Dragons Prey on New Releases

November 2, 2010

New releases failed to make much of an impact on this week's DVD sales chart with only one placing in the top five and only two or three others in the top 30. This left How to Train Your Dragon on top with an easy win at 1.42 million units for the week. This gives it totals of 3.29 million / $70.40 million in consumer spending at retail, which makes it the third-best-selling DVD for any 2010 theatrical release and the eighth-best-selling DVD of the year. Predators was the best-selling new release at 681,000 units / $11.57 million, which is on par with expectations. The Karate Kid slipped to third place, adding 193,000 units / $3.61 million for the week for totals of 1.83 million units / $31.93 million after three. Iron Man 2 became the first theatrical release of 2010 to reach $100 million in DVD sales with $4.43 million from 171,000 units for the week giving it a month-long total of $100.72 million from 4.48 million units. Meanwhile, Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue remains locked in that fifth spot with 102,000 units / $1.87 million for the week and totals of 1.81 million units / $33.59 million after five. It terms of DVD sales, it is well behind the original's pace; however, combined DVD and Blu-ray sales are very stable.

The next new release of the week was Oceans, which placed 12th with 51,000 units / $977,000. Mirrors 2 debuted in 14th place with 49,000 units / $838,000. The only other "New Release" was The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which didn't come out on DVD, but its Blu-ray debut helped the DVD reach 30th place with 22,000 units / $179,000.

Blu-ray sales were mostly very strong this week, up 4.5% from last week to $31.9 million; however, that was down 18% from the same week last year. Then again, this week last year was the week Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen came out, and that film sold about 50% more than the combined top 30 did this year. In fact it generated almost as much revenue as the total DVD market did this year. So the fact that Blu-ray sales were down only 18% is a real victory. Compared to DVD sales, Blu-ray represented 19% of total sales, which was third best result for the year, and 33% of the top 20 comparison, which was sixth best for the year.

How to Train Your Dragon remained the best-selling Blu-ray of the week with 500,000 units, while Predators was relatively close behind with 425,000 units. Other Blu-rays of note were Beauty and the Beast at 250,000 units, while The Rocky Horror Picture Show sold just over 50,000 units while Apocalypse Now sold just under 50,000 units.

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Filed under: Video Sales, Beauty and the Beast, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Karate Kid, How to Train Your Dragon, Iron Man 2, Oceans, Predators, Apocalypse Now, Mirrors 2: Evil Lives, Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue