DVD Sales - Eye Sees Its Way to the Top

January 13, 2009

There were a handful of new releases on the first sales chart of the year, including Eagle Eye, which led the way with 1.39 million units during the week. Adding in previous sales, the film has sold 1.58 million units and generated $34.29 million in consumer retail spending. This meant The Dark Knight was pushed into second place, as the best selling DVD of the year added 662,000 units / $13.72 million to its running tally of 12.66 million units / $266.54 million. Mamma Mia! was right behind with 555,000 units / $13.01 million in sales for the week giving it a three-week total of 5.50 million units and $119.85 million. The direct-to-DVD Resident Evil - Degeneration took fourth place with 315,000 units and $6.29 million. The final film in the top five was The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor with 298,000 units / $5.54 million for the week and 2.37 million units / $43.30 million after three.

The best of the rest of the openers was The Duchess, which landed in 12th place with 208,000 units and sales of $3.68 million. Surprisingly, Beethoven's Big Break managed 18th place with 158,000 units, which was enough for $3.16 million. On the other hand, I was disappointed in Ghost Town's debut of just 156,000 units / $3.30 million. It deserved to do better.

It was not a particularly strong weekend for Blu-ray releases, which explains why total sales were down 39% to $24.3 million; however DVD sales were down more than 50%. This resulted in Blu-ray taking 15.5% of total sales and 16% of the top 20 comparison. That's a record for the latter number, and just shy of the record for the former. It will be interesting to see how well this number holds up going forward, but I'm not overly optimistic it will be able to do so. I think it is likely that the ratio will return to a more normal 10% or so until the fall hits start coming out on Blu-ray.

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Filed under: Video Sales, The Dark Knight, Mamma Mia!, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Eagle Eye, The Duchess, Ghost Town, Beethoven's Big Break, Resident Evil: Degeneration