Blu-ray Sales: Finding the Source of the Problem

August 12, 2011

It was a slow week on the home market, especially on Blu-ray, where it was a rare week suffering from year-over-year declines. But more on that in a bit. The number one selling Blu-ray was Source Code with 189,000 units. It was a little disappointing on DVD and its opening week Blu-ray ratio was just under 33%, acceptable, but not great. It was visual enough that upgrading to High Definition wasn't a bad choice, but second-tier enough that I would understand if a lot of people just didn't want to bother with the extra price. Rango sold an additional 72,000 units over the week for a total of 742,000 units after two. It so far has generated $14.87 million in revenue. Limitless placed third with 62,000 units / $1.42 million for the week and 262,000 units / $6.12 million after two. Next up are practically every film in the Harry Potter franchise. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I led the way in fourth place with 33,000 units / $719,000 for the week and 3.04 million units / $68.39 million after nearly four months of release. The Order of the Phoenix rounded out the five with 28,000 units sold.

Meanwhile, The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, and The Goblet of Fire placed sixth, seventh, and eighth place respectively with nearly identical sales of 26,000 units. (The Half-Blood Price placed 16th with 18,000 units, while The Philosopher's Stone placed 19th with 14,000 units.)

The only other new releases to chart was Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (tenth place with 22,000 units sold and $459,000 in revenue) and National Lampoon's Animal House (twelfth place with 21,000 units sold and $419,000 in revenue).

As I previously mentioned, the overall Blu-ray market was not strong compared to last week and last year. Compared to last week, 33% fewer units were sold and total revenue was 25% smaller. Compared to last year, there were 7% few units sold and 8% less revenue. There is some good news: DVD sales fell even faster when compared to last year. This led to a small increase in the Blu-ray ratio when compared to last year, at 26% in terms of units and 36% in terms of revenue.

Things are looking up for next week and the batch of new releases includes Rio, the best selling theatrical release of 2011 so far. (In fact, early word has it selling 800,000 units on Blu-ray alone.) In comparison, last year's new releases were led by Diary of a Wimpy Kid on DVD and Kick-Ass on Blu-ray. Neither of those can be considered powerhouse releases.


-

Filed under: Video Sales, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, National Lampoon's Animal House, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, Rango, Limitless, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Source Code