Our DVD and Blu-ray sales estimates are based on weekly retail surveys, which we use to build a weekly market share estimate for each title we are tracking. The market share is converted into a weekly sales estimate based on industry reports on the overall size of the market, including reports published in Media Play News.

For example, if our weekly retail survey estimates that a particular title sold 1% of all units that week, and the industry reports sales of 1,500,000 units in total, we will estimate 15,000 units were sold of that title. The consumer spending estimate is based on the average sales price for the title in the retailers we survey.

We refine our estimates from week to week as more data becomes available. In particular, we adjust weekly sales figures for the quarter once the total market estimates are published by the Digital Entertainment Group. Figures will therefore fluctuate each week, and totals for individual titles can go up or down as we update our estimates.

Because sales figures are estimated based on sampling, they will be more accurate for higher-selling titles.

Home Market Releases for January 29th, 2019

January 30th, 2019

We are still stuck in the dead zone on the home market, as it is too late for summer blockbusters, but too early for the major fall hits. The biggest first-run release of the week is The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which says a lot. The best is The Wife, which earns our Pick of the Week. However, The Night is Short, Walk on Girl was a close competitor. More...

Home Market Releases for January 15th, 2019

January 16th, 2019

The big fall releases are starting to come out on the home market. This week we get Halloween, which was a $100 million domestic hit. However, it is not among the best films on this week’s list. There are three Pick of the Week contenders on the week’s list. There’s the award-nominated Indie film, Madeline’s Madeline, the classic Notorious, and Bad Times at the El Royale, for which I finally got the review done. It was a coin-toss, but in the end, Madeline’s Madeline on Blu-ray won. More...

Weekend Wrap-Up: Halloween Repeats on Top, New Releases are Barely Seen

October 30th, 2018

The month of October ends on a soft note with only one of the new releases we talked about in our prediction reached the top ten over the weekend. And even that film, Hunter Killer, didn’t quite reach our low expectations. Fortunately, Halloween came within a rounding error of predictions with $31.42 million and the overall box office wasn’t too bad at $104 million. Granted, this is 37% lower than last weekend, but this is to be expected for Halloween weekend. More importantly, the overall box office was 37% higher than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2018 has pulled in $9.55 billion, putting it ahead of 2017’s running tally of $8.45 billion. At first glance, this looks like 2018 has a $1 billion lead, but it was actually $999 million, according to our numbers. It will certainly get there by the end of business on Monday. This is a fantastic result, but a short-lived one, as November and December won’t be able to maintain this lead. More...

Weekend Estimates: Halloween Holds on Strong, but Susparia Shines

October 28th, 2018

Halloween’s weekend estimates are matching our predictions perfectly with $32.05 million. If this number holds, it will have $126.70 million after just ten days of release. Internationally, it is estimated to earn $25.6 million in 62 markets for a two-week total of $45.6 million. It won’t match its domestic run internationally, but it doesn’t have to do be a financial success. In fact, since the film only cost $10 million to make, if it had just $45.6 million worldwide at this point, it would still have a chance of breaking even, eventually. More...

Friday Estimates: Halloween Laps Competition with $10 million on Friday

October 27th, 2018

As expected, Halloween earned first place on Friday. It was a little weaker than expected at $10.02 million and Universal’s estimate for the weekend is $30.05 million, compared to our prediction of $33 million. A $30 million sophomore stint is still fantastic for a film that cost just $10 million to make; in fact, it cracked $100 million domestically on Friday, which is more than enough to pay for its combined production / advertising budgets. More...

Thursday Night Previews: Hunter doesn’t have a Killer Opening

October 26th, 2018

Hunter Killer debuted with $420,000 during its previews, which is more or less what we expected it would make. Perhaps just over $8 million is more likely now. It depends on how much its reviews affect its legs. As always, we will have a better idea when Friday’s estimates come out. More...

Weekend Prediction: Will Halloween Boost Horror Holdovers?

October 26th, 2018

There’s only one true wide release of the weekend, Hunter Killer, which isn’t expected to make much of an impact at the box office. (Indivisible and Johnny English Strikes Again are both opening in several hundred theaters and one of them could reach the top ten, but probably not both.) This means Halloween will have no trouble repeating on top, while Venom could hold on better than most, thanks to Halloween being less than a week away. This weekend last year, Jigsaw opened in first place with $16.64 million, while Tyler Perry’s Boo 2 was the only other film to earn more than $10 million. Halloween should earn more than those two did giving 2018 yet another win. More...

2018 Preview: October

October 1st, 2018

September turned out to be a solid month. The Nun beat expectations to become a $100 million hit, while there were also several midlevel hits in the mix. Granted, it lost ground when compared to last September, but last September broke records, and this September held on better than expected. Hopefully this means October will be able to continue 2018’s winning ways. There are several potential $100 million hits, starting with Venom and A Star is Born, which open the first weekend. Meanwhile, both First Man and Halloween could break the century mark later in the month. By comparison, last October, no movie topped $100 million, with Blade Runner 2049 coming the closest. 2018 should extend its lead over 2017 during the full month, potentially by a significant margin. More...

Hunter Killer Trailer

August 21st, 2018

Action thriller starring Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman, Common, and Linda Cardellini opens October 26 ... Full Movie Details.

An untested American submarine captain teams with U.S. Navy Seals to rescue the Russian president, who has been kidnapped by a rogue general. More...