DVD Sales - Ice Age a Little Chilly in Stores?

November 11, 2009

Five new releases reached the top 30 on the sales chart this week, including Ice Age - Dawn of the Dinosaurs, which took top spot with 2.46 million units sold and $43.62 million in opening week consumer spending at retail. This was enough for first place by a margin of nearly 1 million units; however, that was 44% lower unit sales that The Meltdown sold during its first week of release. Granted, there are some mitigating circumstance here, including the overall decline in DVD sales, as well as the rise in Blu-ray, but it is still troubling.

Second place went to Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure with 1.50 million units / $23.94 million, which is also lower than the previous releases opened with. However, in this case it was down about 3.5% from the original film, which is actually better than the overall market as a whole has performed this year. Additionally, its Blu-ray sales were much better than its predecessor, while its competition is much tougher this time around, so overall sales were solid. Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen fell to third place with 1.40 million units over the week for totals of 6.84 million units / $155.22 million after two. Like the past two releases, this was a sharp drop-off from its predecessor; in fact, it has sold fewer units in two weeks than Transformers sold in one. The Proposal sold an addition 299,000 units over the week for totals of 3.31 million units and $54.74 million after three weeks of release. Orphan rounded out the top five with 285,000 units / $5.12 million.

The prequel to Battlestar Galactica, The Plan, opened in seventh place with 179,000 units / $3.04 million. Nothing Like the Holidays just missed the top 10 with 79,000 units and $1.59 million after one week of release.

Overall Blu-ray sales remained strong despite falling 32% from last week to $26.5 million, according to Home Media Magazine. That's still one of the best weekly sales numbers in the format, and it is 182% higher than the same week last year. Compared to DVD, Blu-ray represented 13.5% of total sales and 13.9% of the top twenty comparison. Our research shows that the number one selling Blu-ray release of the week was again Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen with 440,000 units sold and $11.5 million in consumer spending. Second place went to Ice Age - Dawn of the Dinosaurs with 290,000 units / $7 million in total sales. The other new release of note was Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, which sold an estimated 150,000 units. If you add the DVD and Blu-ray sales for Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, there is a small improvement over Tinker Bell, which will make Disney happy.

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Filed under: Video Sales, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Proposal, Orphan, Nothing Like the Holidays, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure