War's World Leader
December 3, 2005
War of the Worlds easily won the race on the rental charts with $15.54 million in combined rentals, which is one of the best results of the year.
This is more of a surprise than it may first seem, since people usually buy blockbusters like this and not rent them as much.
Opening in second place was The Polar Express, with an equally impressive $9.56 million. The rest of the top five were all holdovers and none of them saw a double-digit drop-off this week.
Madagascar came in third with $7.27 over the week (down just 8%), for a two-week total of $15.35 million.
The Skeleton Key also dropped just 8%, landing in fourth place with $6.75 million over the week and $14.23 million overall.
On the other hand, Christmas with the Kranks grew by 16% for $6.33 million, which pushed its total to $18.57 million.
The only other new film to chart this week was The Honeymooners, which came in 10th place with $3.11 million in combined rentals.
That's about one quarter of its total theatrical run, but even with a low production budget it is a case of too little, too late.
Most films saw double-digit increases this week (led by Hitch's 51% surge), and that pushed the overall rental market to $187.2 million, which is 31.6% higher than last week and 26.8% higher than last year.
Year-to-date 2005 is still behind 2004's pace, but at $6.9 billion it narrowed the gap to 4.4%.
The War of the Worlds also topped the DVD sales chart ahead of fellow newcomer The Polar Express.
The rest of the top five was the same as last week, just two spots lower.
Madagascar, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, and Stealth finished in third, fourth and fifth places respectively.
Also of note, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire's strong run continued to help The Prisoner of Azkaban, as it remained in 11th place on the sales chart.
The only other new releases to chart last week were all Seinfeld releases.
Leading the way on the TV on DVD sales chart was Seinfeld - Season 5, just ahead of Season 6.
Lost - The Complete First Season climbed into third place while Friends - The Complete Tenth Season fell from first to fourth.
Rounding out the top five was Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin - The Untold Story.
Other new releases in the top ten include Seinfeld - Re-Gift Set, which came in sixth. Also, The Golden Girls - Season 3 just beat out Aeon Flux - The Complete Series for tenth place.
This does mean Firefly - The Complete Series was pushed out of the top ten, just shy of the DVD's second anniversary.
As for Serenity, the DVD remained in 28th place on the Amazon Top 100 chart.
On the rental side, Lost - The Complete First Season remained in first place for the previous two weeks with $339,000 this past week.
Desperate Housewives - The Complete First Season climbed into second place with $130,000 while Alias - The Complete Fourth Season fell to third with $112,000.
Six Feet Under - The Complete Fourth Season rose to fourth with $97,000 putting it just ahead of Friends - The Complete Tenth Season with $86,000.
The only other new release in the past two weeks was Scrubs - Season 2, which opened in 8th place with $85,000, but fell to ninth place this week with $68,000.
Filed under: Star Wars Ep. III: Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, War of the Worlds, Madagascar, The Polar Express, Hitch, Christmas with the Kranks, The Skeleton Key, Stealth, Serenity, The Honeymooners