Blu-ray Sales: Families Happy to be Blu
April 10, 2012
There were not many new releases on the Blu-ray sales chart and many of the top selling DVDs were family films, which tend to struggle on high definition. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked did grab first place, but with just 270,000 units / $6.29 million. Its opening week Blu-ray Share was just 23%, which is weak for the format as a whole and only average for the genre.
Hop rose to second place during its first full week on the home market with 260,000 units / $4.68 million for the week and 592,000 units / $10.64 million in total. The Muppets fell to third place with 141,000 units / $3.81 million for the week giving it a total of 942,000 units / $23.82 million after two. This is an excellent run for a live action family film. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was next with 128,000 units / $2.94 million for the week and 768,000 units / $15.73 million after two. This is better than its run on DVD, but weaker than the studio would have liked given its production budget. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close opened in fifth place with 83,000 units / $1.49 million. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 27%, which is slightly below average for the format but better than average for the genre.
The only new release to chart was Casablanca, as the 70th Anniversary Edition opened in 15th place with 24,000 units / $1.10 million in sales.
As expected, the overall Blu-ray market was nothing short of a disaster. Not only were the biggest selling DVDs weak, they were also the wrong genre for high definition. That said, the collapse was still pretty painful to watch, as the overall market was down 52% from last week in terms of units and 51% in terms of dollars. When compared to last year, the Blu-ray market was down 50% in terms of units and 52% in terms of dollars. DVD sales were also down, but by a much smaller margin, leaving the overall Blu-ray share at just 29% in terms of units and 35% in terms of dollars. Things will get better as bigger releases come out.
Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen next week, as the new releases are only mixed. War Horse and We Bought a Zoo were not box office bombs, but they are not as potent as Tron: Legacy, which was the best selling new release this time last year.
Filed under: Video Sales, Casablanca, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, War Horse, We Bought a Zoo, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, The Muppets, Hop