Blu-ray Sales: Lady and the Vamp

February 22, 2012

New releases took the top three spots on this week's Blu-ray sales chart, although the number one Blu-ray wasn't a new film. Lady and the Tramp came out in theaters more than 50 years ago, but it made its Blu-ray debut selling 949,000 units and generating $23.72 million. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 opened in second place with 788,000 units / $18.12 million, giving it an opening week Blu-ray share of 25%. This is well below average for the format, but given the target demographic, it's pretty strong. A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas was well back in third place with 144,000 units / $3.07 million. By comparison, Blu-ray accounted for 38% of total units sold. Given its genre and target demographic, this is a good start, but not a great one. Drive fell from first to fourth with 74,000 units / $1.47 million for the week giving it 449,000 units / $8.96 million after two. Real Steel held on better than most films and that helped it stay in the top five with 72,000 units / $2.12 million for the week, while it reached a major milestone with 1.04 million units / $29.25 million.

Downton Abbey: Season Two debuted in ninth place with 47,000 units / $1.17 million. TV on DVD rarely does very well on Blu-ray, so a opening week Blu-ray share of 15% is hardly a bad result. Finally, LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace managed 20th place with 23,000 units / $351,000.

It was a good news / bad news week on the overall Blu-ray market. The good news is that there was growth from last week and last year. Blu-ray sales rose 47% in terms of units and 65% in terms of dollars. Its growth from last year was much more dramatic, up 195% in terms of units and 225% in terms of revenue. In fact, Lady and the Tramp sold more units and generated more revenue that the entire market did last year. The only downside is that DVD sales grew even faster compared to last week. This left the overall Blu-ray share down to 39% in terms of units and 47% in terms of revenue. However, while this was a lower than last week, last year these figures were only 18% and 23%.

Next week might be led by The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 during its first full week of release. Unless Lady and the Tramp holds on better than expected, this will almost certainly be the case, as none of the new releases seem particularly strong. Last year, Unstoppable led the new releases selling 731,000 DVDs and 301,000 Blu-rays. I think 2012 should be able to beat that.


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Filed under: Video Sales, Lady and the Tramp, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, Drive, Real Steel, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas