Home Market Numbers: Furious 7 has Mellow Start on the Home Market
October 10, 2015
Six new releases from the week of September 15th reached the top 30 on the combined DVD and Blu-ray chart for September 20th. This includes four in the top five and a new number one. Furious 7 earned first place with 1.87 million units / $31.89 million on the single release for an opening week Blu-ray share of 64%. Impressive. Meanwhile the second Fast and Furious Franchise Box Set released this year earned fifth place with 62,000 units / $3.46 million. While the film very nearly earned twice that of its nearest competitor, it was still almost exactly 40% lower than Fast and Furious 6 opened with. This decline is huge, but all packaged media is down. Some of the slack is going to VOD, but a lot of home market revenue now goes to subscription streaming services like Netflix or Crunchyroll. Personally, I like packaged media, I still buy CDs, so this is bad news for me.
Cinderella opened in second place with 940,000 units / $17.22 million. Its Blu-ray share was 64%, which is surprisingly strong. Usually it would take a visually impressive action film with a Fanboy audience to earn a Blu-ray share like this. The only holdover in the top five was Mad Max: Fury Road with 110,000 units / $2.42 million over the week for totals of 1.45 million units / $33.26 million after three weeks of release. The Big Bang Theory: Season 8 was in a virtual tie for third place with 108,000 units / $3.12 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 39%, which is excellent for a TV on DVD release. Fifth place went to the Franchise Box Set, which I talked about above.
Love and Mercy opened in seventh place with 54,000 units / $763,000. Its Blu-ray share was 36%, which is lower than for the format as a whole, but still great for a TV on DVD release. Empire was one of the biggest new hits of last season, but the The Complete First Season only managed 13th place with 21,000 units / $678,000. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 28%, which is more inline with what we expect for a TV on DVD release. Monkey Kingdom opened in 29th place with 11,000 / $251,000 for the week for opening totals of 13,000 units / $294,000, all of which was sold on Blu-ray.
The one-two punch on top helped the Blu-ray market skyrocket up 324% in terms of units and 214% in terms of revenue when compared to last week. That's astronomical. It also grew when compared to last year, albeit by more reasonable levels of 56% in terms of units and 41% in terms of revenue. DVD sales were nowhere near as strong and as a result, the overall Blu-ray share rose to a massive 58%, up from 32% from last week and 45% from last year.
The DVD sales were also stronger when compared to last week with gains of 48% both in terms of units and revenue. On the other hand, sales were down 8.6% in terms of units and 20% in terms of revenue when compared to last year.
The new releases for next week will be dominated by Pitch Perfect 2. The original is one of only four DVD to spend an entire year in the top 30 on the DVD sales chart, so it will be interesting to see how well it will do. Last year's new releases were led by Neighbors, which topped the DVD, Blu-ray, and the combined charts. The two films had similar box office results, but Pitch Perfect 2 should have a stronger advantage on the home market giving 2015 the win in the year-over-year comparison.
- Combined Blu-ray and DVD Chart
Filed under: Video Sales, Mad Max: Fury Road, Furious 7, Cinderella, Pitch Perfect 2, Monkey Kingdom, Love & Mercy, Fast and the Furious