Home Market Cools - Updated

June 18, 2005

Be Cool opened atop a depressed home market $9.61 million in combined rentals. The film also topped the DVD sales charts, which is welcome relief to the studio after the film's disappointing theatrical box office.

The rest of the top five were all holdovers led by Boogeyman, which actually climbed a spot with $5.40 million. Up next was Are We There Yet? with $5.04 million, down 33% from last week. The Aviator fell even more sharply moving from first to fourth place bringing in just $4.82 million. Rounding out the top five was National Treasure, easily the oldest release in the top five, the film added $4.04 million to its six week total of $46.88 million.

There were a few other new releases that charted this week with Seed of Chucky placing sixth with $3.51 million, Beyond the Sea in 13th place with $1.82 million and The Machinist in 19th place with $1.29 million. However, easily the most shocking result of the week was the 33rd place finish of Sopranos - The Complete Fifth Season. TV on DVD almost never makes it onto the rental charts, in fact, I can't remember the last time this happened. The only explanation I can think of is that the high price scared off enough people who then decided to rent instead of buy. But even so, this is proof of the growing demand for TV on DVD.

The overall market continues to lag behind last year. Unfortunately, exact numbers are not known at this time. I will continue to check and update this column when they are known. - Update - The rental market brought in $142.3 million over the week, down 4.4% from last week and 9.1% when compared to the same week last year. Year-to-date 2005 has seen $3.6 billion in rentals, down 1.8% from last year.

The Top Five DVD sales had a lot more new content than the Rental chart had, in fact, nearly half the top twenty were new releases. As previously stated, Be Cool topped the charts with Sopranos - The Complete Fifth Season. Last week's number one release, Chappelle Show Season 2 slipped to third place. Rounding out the top five was two horror films, Seed of Chucky and Boogeyman.

Other new releases of the week include, but are not limited to, Stripes - Extended Edition in 12th place, the previously mentioned Beyond the Sea and The Machinist, (8th and 17th place respectively) and coming in 20th place was Star Trek: Insurrection - Special Collector's Edition.

There were even more new releases on the TV on DVD sales charts with seven new entries in the top ten. Topping that list was Sopranos - The Complete Fifth Season, which beat out Chappelle Show Season 2. Newlyweds - The Complete Second and Third Seasons managed a third place finish ahead both Seinfeld - The Complete Fourth Season and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - The Complete First Season.

The Dead Zone - The Complete Third Season grabbed the final spot in the top ten. I mention this because the fourth season recently started on the USA Network and not only saw double digit increases in many key demographics, (households, viewers, etc.) but lead all cable programs with 3.5 million viewers.


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Filed under: National Treasure, The Aviator, Be Cool, Boogeyman, Seed of Chucky, Beyond the Sea, The Machinist, Are We There Yet?