Home Market Numbers: Pitch's Opening is Good, but Not Perfect

October 14, 2015

Pitch Perfect 2

Pitch Perfect 2 led the new releases for September 22nd and earned first place on the combined DVD and Blu-ray chart for September 27th. The film sold 974,000 units / $16.76 million during its first week of release, 55% of which was sold on Blu-ray. That's really impressive for this type of film. On the other hand, overall sales were 13% lower than the original film opened with. Additionally, the franchise box set earned fifth place with 48,000 units / $1.37 million.

Furious 7 was pushed into second place with 514,000 units / $9.04 million for the week, giving it totals of 2.38 million units / $40.93 million after two weeks of release. This puts it in seventh place for 2015 and it will likely rise a few more spots before the year ends. Cinderella was next with 214,000 units / $4.07 million for the week and 1.15 million units / $21.28 million after two weeks of release. I suspect it will sell well throughout the holiday shopping season. Mad Max: Fury Road was in fourth place with 69,000 units / $1.56 million for the week and 1.52 million units / $34.82 million after a month of release. This is a solid performance, but the film was very expensive to make, so it still needs more on the home market to break even.

The first season of Flash earned ninth place with 38,000 units / $1.59 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 55%, which is excellent for a TV on DVD release. On the other hand, D.C. Comics tend to do really well on Blu-ray. It's the Fanboy effect here. Likewise, Arrow: Season Three opened in third place with 32,000 units / $1.35 million and an opening week Blu-ray share of 50%. The final new release of the week was Chain of Command, which landed in 16th place with 18,000 units / $218,000. Its opening week Blu-ray share was just 7%. That's pathetic. That's so bad that it probably wasn't worth releasing on Blu-ray.

The Blu-ray market returned to normal down 45% in term of units and 41% in terms of revenue when compared to last week. On the other hand, it grew when compared to last year, with 48% more units sold and 33% higher revenue. DVD sales were down across the board, but by less extreme numbers, leading to the overall Blu-ray hitting 48%, compared to 58% last week and 36% from last year.

Overall DVD sales were down 22% in term of units and 20% in terms of revenue when compared to last week. It also dropped when compared to last year, albeit by smaller margins. There were 12% fewer units sold, while revenue was down 17%.

Next week's new releases will be led by The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Even though it was released on the Friday, not the Tuesday, it's going to destroy the competition. On the other hand, the new releases from last year were led by Transformers: Age of Extinction. That release earned first place on the DVD chart, Blu-ray chart, and combined chart selling more than 2 million units. Age of Ultron's short sales week might make that figure unobtainable leading to a loss in the year-over-year comparison. I hope that is not the case, but it is a real possibility.

- Combined Blu-ray and DVD Chart

Filed under: Video Sales, Mad Max: Fury Road, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Furious 7, Cinderella, Pitch Perfect 2, Chain of Command, Pitch Perfect