Unexpectedly,
21 was able to move the needle upwards this week for both DVD and Blu-ray on the Nielsen VideoScan charts courtesy of Home Media Magazine. While
21 helped both formats, it helped DVD more, as the Blu-ray edition only managed to take 7.71 percent away from DVD. It still didn't have any problems taking the number one spot on both charts though, but while the DVD version outsold
Step Up 2: The Streets by almost four to one, the Blu-ray version couldn't even mange two to one over the much older
Batman Begins. This helps explain how Blu-ray managed nine percent this week, as that one title alone managed 26 percent of the title's share. The bigger shocker -- to at least Universal -- has to be how poorly the Mummy franchise did on both formats. Unlike other Summer theater blockbusters that helped propel the previous movies from the franchise up the home media charts, none of the Mummy movies made the DVD top 20 and even their debut on Blu-ray didn't compare to other franchise catalog titles like Batman. Next week should be something to see though, as Blu-ray released 24 new titles that week, including a few titles we expect to hit home with the Blu-ray demographic like
Stargate: Continuum and
Doomsday.
posted Aug 2nd 2008 2:37PM
Well, when you crunch the numbers it isn't surprising. The Mummy series and associated films are kinda weak. Definitely doesn't scream to most purchasers that they need to upgrade to them, nor on the re-release on dvd. old films, that just aren't that great when compared to Batman which is tearing it up right now.
Just a couple things that jump out at me: Change “mange” to “manage” and “as that one titles” to “as that one title”. Maybe you should type this junk up in Word, then paste it back into your crappy editor.
I seriously do check the comments to make sure you're on this. And then, without fail, you are. Thank you.
Ben, hire this person as your editor... Or just email that pasted word document for them to proofread because, seriously, this is just about unreadable...
So...you've said:
21 outsold "Step Up 2: The Streets" on DVD by almost 4:1...
and the BR version of 21 "couldn't even mange two to one over the much older Batman Begins"
ummm...I think I can explain things to you about that.
from what I gathered from the previews, Step Up 2 looked like an awful sequel to an awful movie about dancing. There are lots of people who aren't going to go out and watch a movie about dancing. To be fair, these types of movies can be good fun if you're in the right mood, and there were probably more plot elements, etc. to make these movies interesting beyond just "being about dancing"...but the demographic that is going to get excited and go out and buy these movies is somewhat limited. At least in my opinion, it is perfectly logical that sales of Step Up 2 were low compared to the #1 title on DVD...
Batman Begins, on the other hand, is an action and comic/hero movie with more wide-ranging appeal. Batman begins did better in the box office in the first place, and has a new sequel in theaters right now to drive up sales of the earlier film. Of course Batman is going to be selling well compared to other BR titles...this doesn't necessarily mean that 21 did comparatively worse on BR than it did on DVD.
Kind of surprising, but welcome (at least, at this stage of the game.) BD still needs to grow consistantly at a faster rate than DVD, and that will take a few weeks to show.
using the week ending apr 20 as a starting point, here is how blu-ray sales have been weekly as a percentage of that week:
20-Apr_____100%
27-Apr_____92.77%
4-May_____71.395792%
11-May____66.16962003%
18-May____80.53504453%
25-May____124.780998%
1-Jun______101.3221704%
8-Jun______101.0587327%
15-Jun_____128.3546964%
22-Jun_____85.47139236%
29-Jun_____89.49709494%
6-Jul______79.24967757%
13-Jul_____84.89225461%
20-Jul_____76.75957662%
27-Jul_____80.62058333%