Blu-ray Sales: New Releases Fail to Arrive on Top
January 11, 2012
Rise of the Planet of the Apes returned to the top of the Blu-ray sales chart with 390,000 units / $5.84 million over the week for totals of 1.59 million units / $33.76 million after three.
The Help rocketed into second place with 251,000 units / $7.04 million, lifting its totals to 1.09 million / $30.41 million. It is selling much better on DVD, but this is not surprising given its target demographic. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 fell to third place with 226,000 units / $3.87 million for the week. There were adjustments to previously gathered numbers, which meant its totals slipped to 4.71 million units / $99.33 million. It will reach the 5 million units and the $100 million milestones shortly. Kung Fu Panda 2 also climbed into the top five this week, earning fourth place with 180,000 units / $3.40 million. After three weeks of release, the film has sold 877,000 units while generating $20.18 million. The final film in the top five was Final Destination 5 with 135,000 units / $2.69 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 43%, which is good, but not great for this type of release.
The only other new release to chart was Apollo 18, which placed 13th with 76,000 units / $1.84 million giving it an opening week Blu-ray share of 40%.
The overall Blu-ray market was terrible compared to last week, but that's not surprising as these numbers represent the post-Christmas week. It fell by 35% in terms of units and 47% in terms of dollars. However, this was a tiny bit stronger than last year up 4% in terms of units and up less than 1% in terms of dollars. DVD sales were not as lucky crashing compared to last week and last year. This helped the overall Blu-ray share climb to 42% in terms of units and 46% in terms of dollars.
I don't have a whole lot of confidence in next week's Blu-ray numbers. The best-selling Blu-ray should be Contagion, but it's the only one that will move significant numbers. On the other hand, this week last year was also really weak and the best-selling Blu-ray was Machete, which only sold about 250,000 units.
Filed under: Video Sales, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, Kung Fu Panda 2, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Contagion, The Help, Final Destination 5, Apollo 18