DVD Sales: New Releases Can't Eclipse Twilight

December 21, 2010

A couple of very high profile new releases hit the home market this week, but despite this, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse was able to top the DVD sales chart during its first full week of release with 3.15 million units / $56.62 million for a running tally of 5.54 million units / $99.68 million. This is practically identical to the sales of the first two films at the same point. Shrek Forever After opened in second place with 1.70 million units / $31.01 million. Comparing it to Shrek the Third seems almost mean, as that film sold twice as many DVDs. On the other hand, it did perform better on high definition than its predecessors did. Inception only managed third place on the DVD chart with 1.45 million units / $26.99 million; however, its DVD seemed designed for rentals while the Blu-ray was worthy of purchase. Toy Story 3 remained in fourth place with 533,000 units / $8.76 million for the week and 7.88 million units and $144.75 million after six. It is now the second best selling DVD of the year. It was a big week for How to Train Your Dragon. Not only did it rocket back into the top five with 320,000 units / $4.74 million, this was enough for two major milestones; reaching 5 million units and $100 million. With a two-month total of 5.07 million units and $101.36 million it is the seventh best selling DVD of the year.

The only other new release to chart was Shrek Box Set, which placed 22nd with 130,000 units, while it generated $4.17 million in revenue.

It was a record-breaking week for Blu-rays in a number of ways. Firstly, Blu-ray sales generated $94.7 million in revenue, which was 39% higher than last weekend and 35% higher than the same weekend last year. Not only that, it was also a record for the format. Meanwhile, DVD sales were down 19%, helping Blu-ray earn 21% of the total market and 36% of the top 20 comparison. Those weren't records, but they came close.

The best-selling Blu-ray of the week was Inception with 2.67 million units. Almost 65% of the film's total sales were in High Definition, which is a record for a first run release. In fact, it Blu-ray sales were so high, that combined DVD and Blu-ray sales were ahead of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse's combined sales, albeit by a tiny margin. The latter film sold 800,000 units for the week for a total of just over 1.5 million units after two. Shrek the Third was relatively close behind with 700,000 units, plus another 100,000 from the Shrek Box Set.


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Filed under: Video Sales, Inception, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Shrek Forever After, How to Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3