Blu-ray Sales: Blu Blood Good for Business
June 15, 2011
True Blood: Season Three was able to lead the way on the Blu-ray sales chart this week, and while the margin was closer than it was on the DVD sales chart, it was still dominant. It started its Blu-ray run with sales of 199,000 units / $7.09 million, which is amazing for a TV on Blu release, although the comparison is difficult, as most TV on DVD releases don't have a Blu-ray release. Likewise, its 20% Blu-ray ratio seems impressive for this type of release; however, there are so few TV on Blu releases that it's hard to judge.
Drive Angry debuted in second place with 110,000 units / $2.76 million, which is actually more money than was spent on DVD. Its opening week Blu-ray ratio was 37%, which is good for a decidedly second-tier release. Gnomeo and Juliet was in a virtual tie with I Am Number Four, both selling 53,000 units. However, while Gnomeo had a slight lead there, it lost out if you ranked the weekly sales by dollars by a margin of $1.32 million to $1.06 million. The running tallies for the two films are now 323,000 units / $6.46 million and 293,000 units / $7.33 million respectively.
Up next was the entire X-Men franchise starting with X-Men Origins: Wolverine in fifth place with 36,000 units. X-Men was right behind with 36,000 units, then The Last Stand at 34,000 units, and finally X2 also at 34,000 units. The release of First Class, as well as deep discounts, helped push them all into the top ten.
After being exceptionally strong last week, the overall Blu-ray sales market returned to normal, down 19% in terms of units and 13% in terms of dollars from last week. This decline is not surprising, since the number one selling Blu-ray was a TV on Blu release. Compared to last year, things were much worse at 38% down in terms of units and 45% in terms of dollars. However, this time last year saw the release of Alice in Wonderland, which not only sold more than 2 million DVDs, it also sold more than 800,000 Blu-rays during its opening week. To put that in comparison, last year, most weeks from the beginning of Summer until the start of the Christmas shopping season saw fewer than 800,000 Blu-rays sold in total. There won't be a single release as strong as that coming out this year until the Fall. However, even with all of this going against Blu-ray this week, the formats sales ratios were strong at 24% of units and 26% of dollars.
Filed under: Video Sales, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men 2, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men, Gnomeo and Juliet, Drive Angry, I am Number Four