DVD Sales: The Toys are Back Indeed
November 16, 2010
Toy Story 3 dominated the new releases and this week's sales chart with 3.86 million units sold and $73.10 million in revenue. After just five days of sales, it is already in the top ten for 2010 and by now it might already be in the top three. We will find out next week when the numbers are in.
Second place went to The Pacific, a mini-series, with 293,000 units / $12.59 million. This type of release rarely charts, so this is even more impressive. How to Train Your Dragon landed in third place with 225,000 units for the week and 3.85 million units after nearly a month of release. Meanwhile its total DVD revenue hit $81.93 million and should rise as the holiday shopping season approaches. Sex and the City 2 fell from first to fourth with 200,000 units $3.40 million for the week and 947,000 units / $16.10 million after two. Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales and Modern Family: Season One could both lay claim to fifth place. The former led the latter in terms of units sold 135,000 units to 122,000 units, but they finished in the opposite order in terms of revenue $3.37 million to $2.17 million.
The only other new release to chart was Centurion, which opened in 20th place with 30,000 units / $632,000.
After a momentary decline in Blu-ray sales, the overall market bounced back up 129% to $48.3 million. This was 72% higher than the same week last year, which is actually quite impressive, as last year G.I.Joe hit the home market, and that's a film that is tailor-made for early adapters of High Definition, so the year-over-year competition was tight. Compared to DVD, Blu-ray represented 20% of the total market, which is only the third time this year and the fourth time in the format's history that that has happened. It also reached 36% of the top twenty comparison, which is the third best result in the history of the format.
As expected, Toy Story 3 dominated Blu-ray sales almost as much as it did on DVD, selling an estimated 2 million units (including some from the Ultimate Box Set. It sold nearly a third of its total units in High Definition, which is a record for an animated film. By comparison, last year Up solid 1.5 million units, which was 24% of its total sales. Second place went to The Sound of Music with 225,000 units, while The Pacific opened in third place with 170,000 units.
Filed under: Video Sales, The Sound of Music, Sex and the City 2, Centurion, How to Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3