DVD Sales - Wicked Witches Strong, but Monsters Prevail

October 14, 2009

This week, we saw a more manageable list of new releases reaching the top 30 on the sales chart, with five new titles and one re-release appearing, compared to a total of nine last week. Leading the way was Monsters vs. Aliens with 2.19 million units sold for opening week consumer spending at retail of $38.20 million. Second place went to the Wizard of Oz special edition, which sold 308,000 units and generated $6.02 million in spending. X-Men Origins - Wolverine finally relinquished top spot, but still added 271,000 units / $5.23 million to take its totals to 3.33 million units / $56.92 million. That makes it the eighth best seller of the year. Fourth place went to Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with 196,000 units for the week and totals of 736,000 units and $12.73 million after two. Superman/Batman: Public Enemies opened in fifth place with 195,000 units / $3.22 million while How I Met Your Mother - Season Four just missed the top five with 122,000 units and $3.05 million.

The next best new release was way down in 26th place, which is where we find Away We Go at 53,000 units / $929,000. Meanwhile, Management earned 28th place with 52,000 units / $1.03 million. However, it is important to note that it is quite rare for limited releases to even chart, so the studios should be happy with these results.

Blu-ray sales were up nearly 60% from last week, reaching $21.8 million. However, that was only 5.5% higher than the same week last year. To be fair, this week last year saw the release of Iron Man, which broke records on High Definition. This year the two biggest releases are a kids movie and a catalogue title. Even so, Blu-ray did represent 11.6% of the total market and 14.9% of the top 20 comparison. That number one selling title was of course Monsters vs. Aliens, which sold roughly 325,000 units, which is an amazing start for a kids movie, both in terms of raw numbers and in terms of sales ratio. About 13% of total sales were Blu-rays, which is about double what a similar release last year would have earned. Meanwhile, Wizard of Oz was in second place with 160,000 units, making it one of the best catalogue releases of the year, while Superman/Batman: Public Enemies opened in fourth place with 75,000 units, which is great for a direct-to-DVD release.

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Filed under: Video Sales, Monsters vs. Aliens, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Away We Go, Management, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies