DVD Sales: Toys Retake Top Spot
December 7, 2010
It was the Thanksgiving long weekend recently and the sales numbers this week include Black Friday. It should come as no surprise that there was an uptick in sales this week, with a number of older releases seeing a massive jump. This includes Toy Story 3, which shot into top spot with 1.27 million units / $21.19 million for the week and 6.78 million / $124.60 million after a month. It is now the third-best-selling DVD of the year.
New releases were led by The Expendables, which placed a very close second with 1.21 million / $20.83 million. The Search for Santa Paws opened in third place with 1.07 million / $18.13 million. This is actually an improvement over Santa Buddies' opening week, but it's a better movie, so this is good result. Fourth place went to The Blind Side, which saw its sales explode with 856,000 units adding $3.90 million in sales. That's an average price of just $4.56 per DVD. That's one hell of a sale. Overall the film has sold 6.53 million units generating $94.21 million in sales, making it the fourth best selling DVD of the year. Eat Pray Love opened in fifth place with 744,000 units, but without deep discounts, it was fourth in revenue with $12.65 million.
That's it for the new releases to chart; however, the massive sales helped The Hangover reach 10 million units in total sales. Its sales for the week were 648,000 / $3.32 million, for an average price of just over $5.
Thanks to Black Friday, Blu-ray sales were up 131% from last week hitting $83 million. This was 21% higher than the same week last year and the second best sales numbers of the format's history. In comparison, DVD sales were down from last year, which means Blu-ray grabbed 17% of the total market share. This is even more impressive, as DVDs tend to be deeply discounted on Black Friday, as The Blind Side and The Hangover show.
The number one Blu-ray seller for the week was The Expendables with 580,000 units. This represents about 32% of total sales, which is a little lower than expected, as first run releases like this have hit 40% Blu-ray sales regularly recently. However, in comparison, last year there was a virtual tie between Angels and Demons and Star Trek at roughly 270,000 units, so that's quite a large increase in that regard. Toy Story 3 came in second place with just over 300,000 units. Meanwhile, The Lord of the Rings trilogy sold nearly 500,000 units combined, thanks to sales prices that were as low as $7 each. I'm still waiting for the extended edition.
Filed under: Video Sales, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hangover, The Expendables, The Blind Side, Toy Story 3, Eat Pray Love, The Search for Santa Paws