Home Market Numbers: Walking Dead Can't Revive the Home Market
September 24, 2015
While there were a huge number of new releases from August 25th to reach the top 30 on the combined DVD and Blu-ray chart for August 30th, none were big hits. The Walking Dead: Season Six led the way with 295,000 units / $7.69 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 34%, which is average for the format as a whole, but excellent for a TV on DVD release.
Aloha opened in second place with 165,000 units / $2.65 million. This is not a good start on the home market, but compared to its theatrical run, it isn't terrible. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 31%, which is good for a drama. Home slipped to third place with 128,000 units / $2.92 million over the weekend for totals of 2.20 million / $40.98 million. Big Game was the Pick of the Week and it earned fourth place with 85,000 units / $1.08 million. This is a good start for a limited release / VOD debut. Its opening week Blu-ray share was just 33%, which is neither good nor bad. Action films tend to do well on Blu-ray, but limited releases tend to struggle, so overall, a 33% share is where one would expect a film like this to debut. Insurgent rounded out the top five with 79,000 units / $1.24 million for the week for totals 1.36 million / $21.85 million.
Lego DC Super Heroes: Justice League - Attack of the Legion of Doom! just missed the top five with 72,000 units / $1.12 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 34%, putting it inline with expectations and nearly every other new Blu-ray release of the week. Skin Trade was well back in tenth place with 39,000 units / $447,000. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 31%. ... Okay, the consistency of the Blu-ray shares this week is starting to get scary. Next up is Lila and Eve in 16th place with 28,000 units / $444,000. Its opening week Blu-ray share was just 16%, so the streak is over. The Runner landed in 18th place with 28,000 units / $268,000, all of which came from DVD.
We are still not done with the new releases. Criminal Minds: Season 10 debuted in 20th place with 26,000 units / $708,000. Elementary: Season Three opened in 29th place with 15,000 units / $458,000. Both of these were only released on DVD.
The overall Blu-ray market was flat compared to last week, down 4.5% in terms of units and 2.3% in terms of revenue. Compared to last year, the overall Blu-ray market was down 35% in terms of units and 40% in terms of revenue. The DVD market was also down, but it wasn't down as much as Blu-rays were. This left the overall Blu-ray share down to 31%, from 32% last week and 34% from last year. A 1% drop week-over-week is statistical noise and is not important.
The overall DVD market was flat compared to last week down just 0.6% in terms of units and 1.9% in terms of revenue. That's hardly worth talking about. On the other hand, DVD sales were down 24% in terms of units and 31% in terms of revenue when compared to last year.
Next week's new releases will be led by Mad Max: Fury Road, which might sell more units than the entire market did this week. There will be huge growth week-over-week. There should also be huge growth year-over-year, as the best new release from last year was Draft Day, which bombed in theaters. Despite this, it dominated on DVD, earned a closer win on Blu-ray, and secured an easy win on the combined chart. If Mad Max: Fury Road doesn't at least triple or quadruple its numbers, I would be shocked.
- Combined Blu-ray and DVD Chart
Filed under: Video Sales, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Divergent Series: Insurgent, Aloha, Big Game, Skin Trade, Lila & Eve, Delirium, The Runner, Lego DC Super Heroes: Justice League - Attack of the Legion of Doom!