Biggest "Bombs" on DVD? (1 Viewer)

[Elena S]

Does anyone know which DVDs were expected to sell well when they were first released but ending up laying an egg?

 

[Matt Hough]

One of the most famous examples, I believe, was the first season of THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW. The real problem there was that Fox overpriced the set (not atypical for them, sad to say), and people weren't willing to pay that kind of money for the show. The subsequent seasons they've released have been much more reasonably priced.

 

[Hank Dearborn]

Really hard to say as to one company selling 50,000 units would be a bomb but to a smaller company that would be an overwhelming success. To the majors, anything that doesn't sell like Friends or Seinfeld is a failure it seems.

 

[Mark Talmadge]

Fox has always had a major problem with overpricing their sets. So has HBO and Showtime.

 

[BobSchneider]

Or anything star trek

 

[TravisR]

Just because a person doesn't want to pay a certain price for a set doesn't mean that it's overpriced. All the Star Trek sets and the overwhelming majority of series from Fox, Showtime and HBO all continued to be released at the same MSRP and it took years until those prices was eventually lowered. If those series were overpriced, people wouldn't have bought them and they wouldn't have continued to be released or they would have had to reduce the price. All the price drops that you see now are just companies trying to make some extra money out of casual fans or fans who wouldn't pay the higher price.

 

[BobSchneider]

Hmmm work for a studio? really? Im sorry 140.00+ to 120.00(orginal prices) for a season for star trek (any incarnation) or X file season sets is overprice any ones book. As is 80.00+ for 12 episode hbo/show time season set. Get a grip please.

 

[LCD22]

Bruce Greenwood's short-lived UPN series "Nowhere Man" (which Image Entertainment licensed from Touchstone) sold horribly on DVD when it was released December 27th, the day after Universal brought out the first season of "SeaQuest DSV". It's too bad as Image did an outstanding job on it, and we may never get a TV wrap-up movie. This was IMO the best one-season wonder every made.

 

[TravisR]

Yeah, you found me out. If it's "overprice in any ones book", all the Star Trek series, nearly every season of The X-Files and nearly every HBO season wouldn't have had a second season released.

 

[Jason Seaver]

It's not overpriced if enough people are willing to pay the money, by definition. Certain shows - Star Trek, The X-Files, Brisco County Junior - have had the sort of fervent fanbase necessary to make those successful releases for the studios. They may be expensive, but they're not overpriced until people aren't willing to pay the money.

 

[Corey3rd]

HBO doesn't hold a candle to the early pricing schemes of A&E. Six Monty Python episodes for $45?

 

[David Levine]

That's the price you pay for not having 15 minutes of commercials in your hour-long shows.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I won't get into whether it's overpriced or not, but Carnivale is still higher than I want to pay. I hoped it would have come down by now. Also, it's not terribly expensive, but I missed getting Dead Like Me at the Fry's Christmas sale, and now both seasons are back up in the $30 range (at least, they were at Best Buy when I looked recently).

Edit: Guess it's just BB, because frys.com has both seasons for $19.99! I need to get those very soon.

 

[BobSchneider]

Look overpriced dvds, like star trek, x files, and all the over priced hbo/showtime are what helped accelerate the growth of legal downloads thur the bit torrents, bootleging and friends ripping and sharing dvds thur a variety of fair use programs. Stupid prices only makes cheating more economically viable, and instead of protecting their copyright they end up diluting it because with assess to cheap an readily available broad internet connections , people have ways to complete cut out studios out of the profit pie. Sorry excessive prices damage sales and encourage illegal work rounds.

Second what I think is hurt dvd sales is a total lack promotion of any kind thur any media channel (ie print, tv, radio, or internet). Good example I wouldnt have a clue that S3 of hawaii five-0 is coming out on jan 22 and no sunday promo ads for any of the major retailers (target, best buy, etc...) if it wasnt for the alerts I get from tvshowsondvd.com , Id have no clue about its release. I'll be getting tuesday but still, the studio have got to figure some way to increase the visablity of there releases, because stealth releases also lead to crappy sale like excessive prices do.

 

[Matt Hough]

I actually did see HAWAII FIVE-O in Sunday sale ads for a couple of mass market retailers, but THE ODD COUPLE 3, also released today, was not mentioned at all in any ad that I saw.

 

[Firebee]

I'd have to disagree about this one, yes, Image did a good job on this set, but after waiting for a long time to buy this set because it was overpriced in my estimation, I finally bought it last summer and recently finished watching it. Except for the pilot and first couple of episodes and some later in this first and only season, it's easy to see why it was canceled. It stunk.

 

[Corey3rd]

Running ads costs money and when you're not moving mega-numbers like Seinfeld, you're mainly eating into your profit margin. Hawaii 5-0 does seemed geared to a different market since it's a complete season with full color pics on the discs vs. the normal Paramount gray. You have to be more strategic with your approach and for the Odd Couple, it seems to be based on reviews and previews on the internet. And hoping fans of the show notice the boxsets in the bins at various stores.

 

[BobSchneider]

The biggest problem with nowhere man is the majority shows scripts were ripoff remakes of "Prisoner" episodes, and the show was constantly compared to it to the Prisoner and usually came up short on ideas and originality. The show producers/writers were too lazy to create show with it own identity and personality of its own. And it also suffered from the typical clinton era tv series produced by " hollywood friends of bill", all the bad guys were obvious "evil rightwing military/republicans" so today most of it villain are stale, boring and one dimensional . Which was one of the more brilliant things Patrick Macgoon did with the Prisoner is you never really knew who ran "the village" you had high security risk prisoners from both sides of the cold war. No.2's were always complex and real and possibly not always complete evil (ie it's your funeral) . So if you going to do a remake of a classic show, you have got to be as good or better than the orginal and on that reguard Nowhere man way Nowhere
Be Seening You

 

[David Levine]

I'm not quite sure how a thread about sets bombing turned into one about overpricing - as if one has to lead to the other.

For example The Sopranos, Rome, Deadwood and The Wire have all done OUTSTANDING numbers despite their pricing. Sure people are downloading them, but it isn't affecting their sales anymore than people downloading Friends, Seinfeld and Scrubs.

 

[troy evans]

I didn't see season one and two of SWAMP-THING in any ad. Like it or not, it did 4 seasons I think, and with that you would think they would have at least an ad somewhere. Ended up finding it at WAL-MART, though. No other stores in my area even had it. Maybe that says something about the show and maybe it doesn't.