Home Market Numbers: American is Number One
June 8, 2015
It was a very shallow week for new releases with only one release that made any real impact. American Sniper dominated the combined home market chart selling ten times as many units as the second place film. During its first week of release, it sold 1.20 million units and generated $22.57 million in sales for an opening week Blu-ray share of 42%. The film is nearly in the top ten on the 2015 combined chart, but given its box office, it should have sold twice that. Also, its Blu-ray share is lower than expected for an action film.
50 Shades of Grey was well back in second place with 116,000 units / $2.00 million over the week for totals of 2.37 million / $41.76 million after three weeks of release. Paddington rose to a spot to third place with 31,000 units / $522,000 for the week and 676,000 units / $11.39 million after nearly a month of release. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 opened in fourth place with just 28,000 units / $508,000. Its opening week Blu-ray share of 40% is actually very good for a comedy. Strange Magic rounded out the top five with 25,000 units / $430,000. Its opening week Blu-ray share was ... 0%, because it wasn't released on Blu-ray. It is very rare for a first-run release to not come out on Blu-ray.
There were only two other new releases to reach the top 30 and both of them were TV on DVD releases. Duck Dynasty: Season 7 debuted in tenth place with 18,000 units / $174,000. Orange Is the New Black: Season Two opened in 16th place with 16,000 units / $331,000 for an opening week Blu-ray share of just 20%. This is low compared to the market as a whole, but TV on DVD releases tend to have lower Blu-ray shares than theatrical releases.
American Sniper couldn't match 50 Shades of Grey and the depth was terrible, so it should come as no surprise that the overall Blu-ray market was down when compared to last week. Total units sold dropped by 17%, but revenue was down, but by a minuscule 0.03% margin. Compared to last year, sales were also down, falling 6.4% in terms of units and 0.7% in terms of revenue. The The overall DVD market was just as little bit weaker and the overall Blu-ray share rose to 39%.
DVD sales were really bad across the board. Compared to last week, there were 21% fewer units sold, while the revenue was 23% lower. DVD sales were even worse when compared to last year, down 27% in terms of units and 36% in terms of revenue. This was not a good week for DVDs.
Next week's new releases are ... oh boy. Seventh Son is the biggest release of the week. That film ended its domestic run with less than $20 million and I can't image it will be a significant player on the home market. Fortunately, the new releases from last year are no better. The biggest new release was Endless Love, which was barely stronger than Seventh Son. However, the best release from last year was Frozen, which led the way on DVD, while Avatar jumped into first place on Blu-ray.
Filed under: Video Sales, Seventh Son, Fifty Shades of Grey, Paddington, Hot Tub Time Machine 2, American Sniper, Strange Magic