DVD Sales - High School Graduates Top of Its Class
March 3, 2009
Six new releases reached the top 30 on this week's sales chart, and four of those six reached the top five. This includes High School Musical 3 - Senior Year, which sold 1.50 million units while generating $26.55 million in consumer spending for the second fastest start of the year.
The only DVD to sell more units during its opening week of sales was Madagascar 2 - Escape to Africa, which slipped to second place this week with 456,000 units sold. After three week of release, the film has sold 3.97 million units for sales of $64.58 million. Body of Lies opened in second place with 392,000 units and $7.00 million in sales. Changeling settled into fourth place with 281,000 units / $4.64 million, while Quarantine rounded out the top five with 222,000 units / $4.43 million.
Religulous opened in ninth place with 96,000 units / $1.93 million, which is strong for a documentary. Meanwhile, Still Waiting... opened in 12th place with 73,000 units / $1.03 million, which is respectable for a direct-to-DVD sequel.
Strangely, while the Blu-ray releases this week were not strong, the overall sales increased by 23% to $13.3 million. This represented 8.6% of total home market sales, and 10% of the top 20 comparison. It also represents a 29% increase from the same weekend last year. The best selling DVD, High School Musical 3 - Senior Year, managed just 5% of total sales as High Definition releases, which works out to roughly 80,000 units. This time last year, that would have been an amazing start, especially for a kids movie. However, it was only enough for second place this year as Body of Lies sold an estimated 100,000 units. Meanwhile, Quarantine placed third with close to 50,000 units.
Filed under: Video Sales, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Body of Lies, Changeling, Quarantine, Religulous, Still Waiting...