DVD Sales - Bee Earns an A on Sales Chart
March 23, 2008
There were eight new releases to chart this week, including seven of the top eight spots. Needless to say, we had a new sales champion with Bee Movie leading the way with 1.41 million units sold for total revenue of $23.09 million. That isn't the best start of the year, but it is close. In fact, the film is already the ninth best-selling DVD of 2008
No Country for Old Men opened in second place with $16.06 million from 925,000 units, which would have been enough to win a few weeks this year but is lower than expected. 101 Dalmatians was the only holdover in the top five, as it fell to third place with 452,00 units and $7.02 million in sales for the week for totals of 1.81 million units and $28.66 million after two. Hitman opened in fourth place with 430,000 units / $8.99 million while Dan in Real Life placed fifth with 325,000 units / $6.03 million in revenue.
There were a trio of new releases that just missed the top five with August Rush placing sixth with 264,000 for sales of $4.74 million. Stargate - The Ark of Truth earned seventh place with 191,000 units sold for $3.24 million, which is very strong for a direct-to-DVD TV release like this. The third release was Nancy Drew, which placed eighth with 158,000 units and opening week sales of $3.14 million. It would have likely earned a lot more had it been released closer to its theatrical run. The final new release to chart was Tin Man, as the mini-series opened in 25th place with 42,000 units sold for opening week earnings of $673,000.
Firesales are subsiding on HD DVD and that helped Blu-ray win the week with 78% market share, which is better than last week and slightly better than the yearly average. Also of note, No Country for Old Men did well very on Blu-ray, generating a reported 10% - 15% of total sales (in dollars, not units). This is higher than the average 5% to 10% in the past, and suggests that High Definition is growing now that the Format War as ended.
Filed under: Video Sales, Bee Movie, No Country for Old Men, Dan in Real Life, Hitman, August Rush, Nancy Drew, Stargate - The Ark of Truth