Blu-ray Sales: Rio Sets Summer Records
August 17, 2011
As previously stated many, many times recently, the summer is the worst time of year for the home market. However, there was a bright spot this week with the release of Rio, which not only topped the Blu-ray sales chart, it topped studio estimates. During its opening week, the film sold 1.02 million units on Blu-ray generating $21.37 million in opening week sales, which was the best figures since we debuted the weekly Blu-ray sales chart at the beginning of summer, and in fact the best summer release in the history of the format. Its Blu-ray ratio for its opening week was 37%, which is stunning for a kids movie and certainly raises the bar for the summer CG blockbusters.
Soul Surfer opened in second place, but with just 105,000 units / $2.09 million. Its opening week Blu-ray ratio was just 21%, which is low for the average Blu-ray release. However, it was strong for a drama. Source Code fell to third place with 59,000 units / $1.12 million for the week and 248,000 units / $4.55 million after two. Limitless added 36,000 units over the week and its running tally is now 297,000 units / $6.99 million after three. Eastbound & Down: Season Two debuted in fifth place with 32,000 units / $668,000. Its opening week Blu-ray was 24%, which is very solid for a TV on DVD release.
The only other new release to chart was Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Part 5. Anime is still niche market, so this is quite impressive.
Since Rio broke records, it should come as no shock that the overall Blu-ray market saw amazing growth this week, more than doubling last week's total sales. More importantly, sales were up 74% in terms of units and 67% in terms of dollars when compared to last year. DVD sales also grew from last year, but by a much smaller amount, resulting in significant growth in the Blu-ray ratios for the week. Nearly 33% of all units sold were on Blu-ray, while the format accounted for 42% of all revenue.
Next week things should return to normal as the new releases are rather soft. (In other words, it's a typical summer week.) Last year's new releases were led by Date Night, which did well on DVD, but like most romantic comedies, it was soft on Blu-ray. Hopefully this will mean there will be year-over-year growth, even if the week-to-week decline is sharp.
Filed under: Rio, Limitless, Soul Surfer, Source Code