Home Market Numbers: Age Opens Well, but Not Quite the Ultimate Opening

October 21, 2015

The Avengers: Age of Ultron

As expected, The Avengers: Age of Ultron led the September 29th new releases earning an easy first place on the combined DVD and Blu-ray chart for October 4th. It sold 1.60 million units and generated $29.35 million in revenue. It also had an opening week Blu-ray share of 69%. That's simply fantastic. However, it wasn't the best first-week opening we've seen this fall, as it fell just behind Furious 7. On the other hand, Age of Ultron was a Friday release, so it had a shorter opening week. Next week we will compare the running tallies of the two films and that will likely give us a much better picture of where these two films will end up.

Spy placed a distant second with 565,000 units / $9.17 million and an opening week Blu-ray share of 35%. This is weaker than I would have liked, given the quality of the film, but still enough to keep the studio happy. Pitch Perfect 2 fell from first to third with 267,000 units / $4.51 million over the week for a two-week total of 1.23 million units / $21.06 million. It is clear this film won't have the same legs on the home market as the first film had, but so few films do. Furious 7 was next with 239,000 units / $3.84 million over the week for totals of 2.61 million units / $44.48 million after three weeks of release. The film is already the 6th biggest release of the year. Poltergeist is a movie I forgot existed. This perhaps explains why it only managed fifth place with 121,000 units / $2.09 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 41%, which is fine for a horror film.

Outlander: Season One - Volume Two just missed the top five with 105,000 units / $2.35 million, including a Blu-ray share of 24%. This is excellent for a TV on DVD release. As bad as VOD and subscription streaming services have hurt theatrical releases, they have decimated the TV on DVD market, so much so that Fox announced they are no longer putting out Simpsons DVDs or Blu-rays.

Entourage earned eighth place with 65,000 units / $1.14 million during its first week of release. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 47%, which is great for a comedy like this. However, Warner Bros. had to have hoped for a lot more than this when they greenlit this film with a $30 million budget. Monster High: Boo York, Boo York earned ninth place with 52,000 units / $655,000 for an opening week Blu-ray share of 16%. Its sales were not that far behind Entourage and it likely cost less than 10% of that film's budget. There was a The Heat / Spy double-shot, which earned 14th place with 30,000 units / $673,000. Bones: Season 10 was right behind with 27,000 units / $658,000, all of which was earned on DVD. Another TV on DVD release, Grimm: Season Four, was right behind with 23,000 units / $739,000. This includes an opening week Blu-ray share of 23%. This isn't bad for TV on DVD.

The Blu-ray market bounced back up thanks to The Avengers: Age of Ultron. It was up 48% in terms of units and 37% in terms of revenue when compared to last week. Compared to last year, Blu-ray sales were also higher, albeit by lower margins (6.3% in terms of units and 7.9% in terms of revenue). DVD sales were also strong across the board, but did better year-over-year and weaker week-over-week. This put the overall Blu-ray share at 37%, up from 31% last week, but down from 42% last year. Just looking at the top 20, the Blu-ray share was 53%, compared to 50% for last week and 49% for last year.

DVD sales were also higher than last week and last year. Week-over-week, there were 16% more units sold, while the revenue was 18% higher. Year-over-year, things were even better as there were 32% more units sold and 25% greater revenue. These numbers are fantastic.

Next week's new releases will again be led by The Avengers: Age of Ultron, which will have its first full week of release. The best new release from last year was Edge of Tomorrow, which led the way on the combined chart and the Blu-ray chart. However, Transformers: Age of Extinction repeated on top of the DVD chart. I really think Age of Ultron will top the top two entries on last year's chart, so even though the depth is weaker this year, 2015 should come out on top in the year-over-year comparison.

- Combined Blu-ray and DVD Chart

Filed under: Video Sales, Poltergeist, Entourage, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Furious 7, Spy!, Pitch Perfect 2, Monster High: Boo York, Boo York