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.

Theater counts: Ghostbusters takes off in 4,345 theaters

March 21st, 2024

It was another battle at the domestic box office this week with Kung Fu Panda 4, and Dune: Part Two once again going head-to-head for the number one and number two spot, with the former taking the weekend, while the latter topped the weekday dailies chart. To date, the two films have combined for over $328 million in domestic revenue, with Dune grabbing $213 million, while Kung Fu Panda 4 holds $114 million. This week will see both take a backseat to the latest in the Ghostbusters franchise as Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire charges into theaters. More...

Thursday Night Previews: Rampage Wrecks Previews with $2.4 million

April 13th, 2018

Rampage started its box office run with $2.4 million during its Thursday night previews. This is almost $2 million lower than A Quiet Place managed last weekend, but last weekend was also Easter weekend, so a lot of the target audience had Friday off. Even so, this isn’t quite where I was hoping it would land when I made my prediction yesterday. $35 million is still possible, but it would take strong legs to get there. Fortunately, its reviews have continued to improve and the film’s Tomatometer Score is now 53% positive. According to this metric, it is the best wide release based on a video game of all time. This actually makes some sense. The original video game was based on movies like King Kong or Godzilla, so it should be able to inspire at least a passable version of those films. More...

Weekend Predictions: Will Kong be King of the Box Office?

March 9th, 2017

There’s only one new release this week, Kong: Skull Island, which should earn first place on the box office chart. Probably. Logan isn’t too far back as far as box office tracking and might repeat in first place. In order to do this, Logan would either have to hold on a lot better than most comic book movies do and / or Kong would have to miss expectations. This weekend last year, there were four wide releases; however, they only managed a little more than $35 million combined. Kong: Skull Island should top that with ease and that’s good news for 2017. Unfortunately, Zootopia earned more than $50 million and that will likely be out of reach for Kong, so 2017 will need to rely on its depth to win in the year-over-year competition. I’m optimistic that will happen. More...

2017 Preview: March

March 1st, 2017

February was an okay month. The films that missed expectations were mostly balanced by the films that were pleasant surprises. Unfortunately, last February was amazing as Deadpool dominated the chart, so 2017 has fallen further behind 2016 and 2016’s lead is now about $100 million. It is not so bad that a good March won’t help 2017 back into the lead. Will that happen? We have some good news and some bad news. Good news: Every week there is one movie that has at least a shot at $100 million. Two of them, Logan and Beauty and the Beast, could reach $200 million or a lot more. Bad News: last March, both Zootopia and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice earned more than $300 million. That’s a really powerful one-two punch and I don’t think we can replicate that this time around. On the other hand, last March, the third best film of the month was 10 Cloverfield Lane, while there were four films that were expected to open wide that earned less than $10 million at the box office. 2017 likely won’t be as good at the top, but I also don’t think it will have as many bombs either. If Beauty and the Beast reaches the very high end of expectations, then 2017 could even close the gap with 2016 entirely. I’ll be happy getting halfway there. More...

Note: This list contains actors who appeared in at least two movies in the franchise.

Note: This list contains people who contributed to at least two movies in the franchise.