Blu-ray Sales: Steel Grabs the Loot
February 8, 2012
There was no competition on the Blu-ray sales chart, as Real Steel topped all new releases and holdovers by a healthy margin. It sold 799,000 units and generated $22.36 million in sales giving it an opening week Blu-ray share of 54%. Hopefully we will see a lot more films crack 50% as the winter blockbusters start to come out.
Paranormal Activity 3 opened in a distant second place with 202,000 units / $4.03 million. It hasn't been released on DVD yet, so obviously it has a 100% Blu-ray share. 50/50 opened in third place, just as it did on DVD, as it sold 133,000 units earning $2.40 million. The film's opening week Blu-ray share was 45%, which is incredibly strong for a non-action film. If its share was 10 percentage points lower it would have still been a good start. Moneyball fell from second to fourth with 81,000 units / $1.97 million. After three weeks of release, it has sold 665,000 units and generated $14.40 million in Blu-ray sales, which is strong for this genre. The Lion King returned to the chart in fifth place with 48,000 units / $1.09 million for the week. After four months of release, the film has sold 3.7 million units and generated $98 million in sales. It's very rare for a catalog title to reach $100 million in total Blu-ray sales, so this is fantastic.
The only other new release to chart was Transformers Trilogy Box Set with 24,000 units / $949,000.
The overall Blu-ray market rocketed back to life this week growing week-over-week by 97% in terms of units and 102% in terms of dollars. It also grew compared to last year, albeit by smaller margins of 9% in terms of units and 26% in terms of dollars. DVD sales were not as fortunate falling a little bit from last week and substantially compared to last year. This helped the overall Blu-ray share climb to 44% in terms of units and 53% in terms of dollars, which is a huge improvement over last week and last year.
Next week there are a number of Blu-ray releases, but mostly for films that disappointed at the box office. Transformers: Dark of the Moon does have a 3D Blu-ray Combo Pack, but I'm unsure how well that will sell. Last year's best selling DVD was Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, but the best selling Blu-ray was Red, which repeated on top with just 172,000 units. Hopefully we can beat that.
Filed under: Video Sales, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Lion King, Transformers, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Real Steel, Moneyball, Paranormal Activity 3, 50/50