Home Market Numbers: New Releases Suffer from a KISS of Death
August 26, 2015
The new releases for July 21st were WOW levels of bad with not a single first-run release to mention. This left holdovers on top of the combined DVD and Blu-ray chart for July 26th. The Longest Ride remained in first place with 288,000 units / $4.64 million for the week, giving it totals of 788,000 / $13.39 million after two weeks of release. It should have no trouble cracking 1 million units sold, which will keep the studio happy.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 remained in second place with 186,000 units / $3.42 million over the weekend for totals of 464,000 units / $8.58 million after two weeks of release. It will fall out of the top five quickly, and that will be the last we hear of this franchise. The best new release was Wild Horses. Or to be more accurate, it was the best-selling new release, with 123,000 units / $1.32 million over the weekend. That's awesome for a film that was a VOD premiere. On the other hand, its opening week Blu-ray share was just 15%. Get Hard returned to the top five in fourth place with 118,000 units / $2.11 million for the week and running totals of 968,000 units / $17.57 million. Scooby-Doo and KISS! Rock and Roll Mystery rounded out the top five with 97,000 units / $1.45 million, while it earned an opening week Blu-ray share of 14%. That's really bad compared to the overall market, but it is a kids show, so that's a mitigating circumstance.
Kung Fu Killers was the only other new release to chart. It opened in 14th place with 53,000 units / $584,000 for the week for total opening sales of 55,000 units / $608,000. Its Blu-ray share was 34%, which is okay for an action film.
With almost no new releases this week, and the two biggest ones doing terribly on Blu-ray, it should come as no surprise that the overall Blu-ray sales chart fell apart this week. Compared to last week, there were 31% fewer units sold, while the revenue was 43% lower. Compared to last year, there were 34% fewer units sold and revenue fell 48%. DVD sales also fell, but not by this amount, resulting in the overall Blu-ray share falling to 28%, compared to 35% for last week and 30% for last year. Things will improve next week.
The overall DVD market was also bad, but not quite as bad. Compared to last week, sales were practically flat, down just 4.7% in terms of units sold. Revenue was not as stable, down 14%. Compared to last year, there were 27% fewer units sold and the total revenue was 43% lower. We've had a record-breaking summer, so the home market will turn around when those releases start coming out.
Next week's new releases are miles above this week's selection. Or to be more specific, Home is miles ahead of this week's selections. It will dominate both the DVD and Blu-ray sales charts and by itself will cause the home market to recover. This week last year, had a one-two punch of Noah and The Other Woman. Neither were huge hits on the DVD or Blu-ray, but combined they might be enough to hold off Home.
Filed under: Video Sales, Home, The Longest Ride, Get Hard, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, Yi ge ren de wu lin, Wild Horses, Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery, Paul Blart: Mall Cop