Home Market Numbers: Fifty Shades Continues its Perfect Run

June 4, 2015

Fifty Shades of Grey

The second major change in news articles this week is the consolidation of the home market columns and using the Combined DVD and Blu-ray Sales Chart. It is kind of a bad week for this change, as the new releases were a disappointment; 50 Shades of Grey remained on top on both the Blu-ray sales chart and the DVD sales chart. It sold an additional 896,000 units and generated $15.82 million for the week giving it totals of 2.27 million units / $40.20 million.

Second place went to Pitch Perfect with 122,000 units / $845,000 for the week giving it totals of 6.57 million units / $101.57 million. This is the 55th week the film has been in the top 30 on the DVD chart, putting it in third place on the all time chart. It will get to second place soon, but Minions comes out next month and that should help the two Despicable Me films return to the top 30 and that will keep Despicable Me in top spot on the all-time chart for a while.

Mortdecai was the best of the new releases and this is a surprise given its reviews and box office performance. The film sold 108,000 units and generated $1.39 million in sales. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 27%, which is on the low end, even for a comedy, but not unexpected. Paddington remained in the top five with 107,000 units / $1.73 million for the week and 647,000 units / $10.90 million after three. This isn't a bad run so far, but given its reviews, it deserved better. The final new release in the top five was The Cobbler with 85,000 units / $941,000 for an opening week Blu-ray share of 29%. Like with Mortdecai, this is not good, but it is also not unexpected.

Blackhat just missed the top five with 83,000 units / $1.55 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 49%, which is about as good as one would expect. Still Alice won an Oscar, but it only managed tenth place with 67,000 units / $1.21 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 27%. Dramas rarely have great Blu-ray shares, but this is still disappointing. Tracers barely had a theatrical run, but it managed 13th place with 41,000 units / $515,000. Its opening week Blu-ray share was just 23%, which is terrible for an action film. The latest, but not last, Jurassic Park Collection opened in 18th place with 29,000 units / $876,000, all of which were sold on Blu-ray. The final new release to chart was Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts, which was less than 1,000 units behind the previous release. It sold 29,000 units / $430,000 for an opening week Blu-ray share of 40%. This is actually lower than most D.C. releases manage.

The overall Blu-ray market was drastically mixed. That sounds contradictory, but it makes sense when you look at the numbers. Compared to last week, Blu-ray sales were down 30% in terms of units and 32% in terms of revenue. However, when compared to last year, there were 29% more units sold, while the revenue was 7.9% higher. The overall DVD market hung on a lot better than the Blu-ray market did and this sent the overall Blu-ray down sharply to 38%.

DVD sales were also down compared to last week, albeit by relatively low margins. There were 5.9% fewer units sold and the total revenue was 7.2% lower. DVD sales were mixed compared to last year, with 2.1% more units sold, but 2.3% lower revenue.

Next week's new releases are much better than this week's were, thanks mostly to American Sniper. That film will crush last year's new releases. The Monuments Men led the way on both Blu-ray and DVD. American Sniper might sell more than the entire home market did in 2014. If 2015 doesn't win the year-over-year comparison, then there's something wrong.


-

Filed under: Video Sales, Pitch Perfect, Fifty Shades of Grey, Paddington, Blackhat, Mortdecai, Tracers, American Sniper, The Cobbler, Still Alice, Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts, Jurassic Park, Despicable Me