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.

Blu-ray Sales: Rango Remains on Top

August 3rd, 2011

Rango remained the best selling Blu-ray this week with 317,000 units / $6.34 million for the week and 670,000 units / $13.39 million after two. More...

DVD Sales: Rango's Appeal Remains Limitless

August 3rd, 2011

During its first full week on the home market, Rango led the weekly DVD sales chart, holding off a few new releases in the process (very few new releases).It sold an additional 621,000 units / $9.93 million during the week for totals of 1.18 million units / $20.43 million after two. That's very close to Gnomeo & Juliet's running tally, and that DVD was released two months ago. More...

DVD and Blu-ray Releases for July 19th, 2011

July 18th, 2011

Looking at the overall strength of the home market releases this week and there's not a lot to look forward to. If you don't count Rango, which came out on Blu-ray / DVD on Friday, then the biggest hit of the week is Limitless. That film is worth picking up on Blu-ray, but it's not exactly Pick of the Week material. In fact, the best release on this week's list is Once Upon a Time in America, which made its Blu-ray debut at the end of May, but the screener arrived very late. Despite this, I'm awarding it the Pick of the Week. More...

Featured Blu-ray / DVD Review: Take Me Home Tonight

July 17th, 2011

Take Me Home Tonight was made in 2007 and took several years to finally get a theatrical release. Many reasons have been given to explain why this happened, including the drug use shown in the movie that would result in an R-rating, 1980s nostalgia that might be a tough sell to today's audiences, and poor test screenings. Regardless why it was delayed, that seemed like a wise choice given its performance at the box office. But is the film really as bad as its poor ticket sales would imply? More...

Winning the Battle but Losing the War

March 14th, 2011

While Battle: Los Angeles easily won the race at the box office this weekend, that was practically the only bit of good news, as it was the only film in the top five to top expectations. Overall the box office pulled in $129 million, which was 3% lower than last weekend and 12% lower than the same weekend last year. On the other hand, this is actually better than average for the year so far. Year-to-date, 2011 is just over 20% behind last year's pace at $1.85 billion to $2.33 billion. More...

Rango Leads 2011 but Can't End the Box Office Woes

March 7th, 2011

There's very little good news at the box office this weekend, but we will start with some happy thoughts. Rango had the best opening weekend of the year, which helped the box office climb 23% from last weekend to $134 million. On the other hand, this time last year Alice in Wonderland opened with $116 million by itself, which means 2011 lost the year-over-year comparison by 32%. Year-to-date, 2011 now has $1.69 billion compared to last year's pace of $2.13 billion and it's not like it's going to get better over the coming weeks. More...

Depp vs. Depp

March 3rd, 2011

So far 2011 has been a bit of a bust with only one weekend winning the year-over-year comparison and not a single film opening with more that $40 million. Hopefully one of those records will change this weekend, as Rango looks to become the biggest hit of the year so far. Unfortunately, this time last year saw the release of Alice in Wonderland, the biggest March opening of all time. I can't imagine a scenario where 2011 doesn't lose even more ground on 2010. More...

2011 Preview: March

March 1st, 2011

This is going to suck. February wasn't exactly a banner month at the box office and 2011 is already roughly $400 million behind 2010's pace. To make matters worse, last March broke records starting with the release of Alice in Wonderland. There is no movie coming out this month that will come close to Alice in Wonderland's performance; in fact, the number one film this March will likely not do as well as the second best film from last March. The best case scenario has the month producing three $100 million movies, plus a number of midlevel hits, while still failing to match last year's pace by about $100 million. The worst case scenario has two of the three potential $100 million hits missing that mark, plus the midlevel hits also struggling. In that case, we could end March about $300 million further behind 2010's pace. (Hopefully things will start to turn around in April.) More...