Home Market Crashes

September 17, 2005

Crash landed at the top of the rental charts this weekend, but it was a very close race. The film earned $8.30 million in DVD rentals and $560,000 in VHS rentals for a total of $8.86 million. The film also led the DVD sales chart, but as usual, no numbers were given.

Just a fraction behind was both Monster-In-Law with $8.55 million and Sahara with $8.00 million, down 23% and 26% respectively. There was also a very, very close race for fourth place between Guess Who and Beauty Shop with the former leading the latter $2.96 million to $2.95 million.

Only two other new releases charted this week led by the direct-to-DVD film, The Marksman with $1.36 million for an 11th place finish. That's good for a direct-to-DVD release and means the film could probably have had a theatrical release. And in 29th place with $640,000 was Lost - The Complete First Season and I don't need to tell you how rare it is for a TV on DVD release to crack the top 30 on the rental charts.

It looks like we can't have two weeks in a row of sustained growth with the overall rental market down 11.1% for the week at $127.7 million, but more importantly down 18.7% on the year-to-year comparison. Year-to-date, 2005 has brought in $5.4 billion in total rentals, which is down 4.7% from the same time period last year.

The sales side was again busier this weekend with three new releases in the top five, but only the number one release, Crash, was a first-run release. Second spot went to a TV on DVD release, Lost - The Complete First Season, while third place went to a Special Edition, Toy Story - 10th Anniversary Edition. Rounding out the top five were the only two holdovers, Sahara and Monster-In-Law.

And it was even busier on the TV on DVD charts with four new releases in the top five. As expected, Lost - The Complete First Season led the way ahead of a couple of WB series, Charmed - The Complete Second Season and Smallville - The Complete Fourth Season. Fraggle Rock - Complete First Season placed fourth, which continues to prove that Jim Henson's creations are as popular as ever. And lastly we have The Simpsons - The Complete Season Six, which at four weeks old is easily the oldest release in the top five.


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Filed under: Monster-in-Law, Guess Who, Sahara, Crash, Beauty Shop