DVD Sales - "Lord of the Rings" - 8/11/02 (1 Viewer)

[Malcolm R]

1. Lord of the Rings (Widescreen)
2. Lord of the Rings (Pan & Scan)
3. The Simpsons - Second Season
4. Collateral Damage
5. Resident Evil
6. The Time Machine
7. John Q
8. Super Troopers
9. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
10. Black Hawk Down
11. Clash of the Titans
12. The Royal Tenenbaums
13. Tarzan & Jane
14. Dragonfly (Widescreen)
15. A Beautiful Mind (Widescreen)[/list=1]
    Week Ending 8/11/02
    From Video Business, published by Variety.

 

[Daniel J]

Aahhhh nuts.
Has anyone else re-organized shelving units upon seeing 'fullscreen' logos?

 

[CamiloCamacho]

Take a look at this numbers Warner and all Full Screen Only promoters....

 

[Damin J Toell]

Take a look at this numbers Warner and all Full Screen Only promoters....

The numbers, of course, don't include all sales, most notably Wal-Mart. Studios like Warner care about the entire field of sales, not merely the section covered by Video Business.

DJ

 

[Joshua Clinard]

We'll see what billboard's rankings are when it get's updated. Billboards ranks includes all retailers, except for online.

 

[Tom Ryan]

It's interesting to see The Simpsons Season 2 up so high. That's selling quite fast for a 4-disc set. Good news for fans of TV on DVD (like me).

 

[Malcolm R]

Billboard's ranks includes all retailers

Someone said recently that some of the large mass merchants, like Wal-Mart, do not report sales figures (at least on a weekly basis, if at all) so I'm not sure there is any source that really includes all retailers.
The Video Business chart is widely reported throughout the industry, including reprinting in each issue of Entertainment Weekly. It also takes into account DVD retailers such as Best Buy, Circuit City, Tower Records, and on-line shops that offer the widest selection of DVD title choices, rather than already starting from the narrow band of only 25-50 titles stocked by the average mass discount retailer (most of which are skewed towards pan-and-scan as well, another factor causing an unlevel playing field in whatever figures they do report).
In the overall gross numbers game, Wal-Mart and their like may be important. But I think the Video Business chart is valuable, especially for showing the preference for widescreen when consumers have a true choice at an actual DVD retailer.

 

[Randy A Salas]

Billboards ranks includes all retailers, except for online.

No, it doesn't. Billboard's chart emphasizes specialty retailers and not all mass retailers. And online sellers, while small, are an important component, especially for widescreen sales. Billboard's chart also is a week behind (we won't see Lord of the Rings debut until next Thursday), and it has a different reporting period.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

So did the LOTR DVD set any records? It's garnered a great deal of interest from people I work with who don't generally buy DVD's.

 

[Matt Giggey]

Yeah, I'd be a lot more interested to see actual sales figures. I bet there was a big drop off between #2 and #3 and between #3 and #4.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

I wonder if that #2 position is counting all the free Blockbuster and Kia Test Drive full frame discs...?

 

[David_SG]

Really, I don't care so much about rankings as to what the total # of units sold was. When is this info going to be released? How come the Brits released this data four days ago and we still haven't heard any U.S. figures?

 

[David James]

"I wonder if that #2 position is counting all the free Blockbuster and Kia Test Drive full frame discs...? "
My Free Blockbuster Widescreen copy would have counted in the #1 position. The Blockbuster near me only carried the the widescreen version for rent. It had both for sale. Don't be blinded by the anti BB crap on this forum

 

[MatS]

no hard numbers released yet .....but.....
COMMENTARY
HETTRICK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Hettrick is VB editor-in-chief and home entertainment editor for Variety.
[email protected]
WHO'S COUNTING?
Just a week after the release of Lord of the Rings, the second-guessing by competitors has already begun in earnest.
If industry estimates of total first-week sales of 5.2 million - 6.5 million copies (not counting 1 million - 2 million copies sold to rental stores) are accurate, that means, according to various 52-week projections by New Line competitors, that overall sales of Lord of the Rings will top out at 14 million - 15 million units. (New Line would not discuss sales figures.)
The same kind of 52-week estimates for Harry Potter top out at somewhere between 16 million - 18 million.
Those were the two biggest movies of last year, each generating more than $310 million at theaters, and each the first of new mega-franchises for which the second installments are being released in theaters in just a couple of months.
Although many people like to compare the relative video success of the two as if there is some sort of competition within the Warner family, the more interesting comparison is to the video releases of the next two biggest theatrical movies of 2001, Shrek and the upcoming release of Monsters, Inc., each of which grossed in excess of $255 million in theaters.
If Shrek can generate video sales of 24 million units after grossing $50 million less in theaters than either of the other two movies, why are sales of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings falling short by such a wide margin of 6 million - 10 million units each?
Some competitors will tell you that Warner is not as good at marketing big event pictures on home video--the studio has no titles among the biggest video sellers. Others point to the shockingly low first-week VHS sales figures on Lord of the Rings in particular--1 million - 1.5 million units (excluding nearly 1 million to rental stores)--and to what they believe is needlessly low DVD pricing that offers little distinction from VHS pricing, and suggest that Warner is trying to kill the VHS market as quickly as possible. The studio is targeting the 30 million DVD homes almost exclusively, while ignoring the other 50 million VHS households, competitors say.
But maybe it's simpler than that.
Maybe Shrek did so much better because it's an animated movie. Sure, you could argue that Harry Potter appeals to kids and families as Shrek does. But look at the top-selling videos of all-time. They're all animated movies, most of which outsold even the biggest live action movie in the history of cinema, Titanic.
And it's worth noting that Shrek was released in the fourth quarter last year, not May or August like Potter and Rings, respectively.
That means Monsters, Inc. has a great shot at exceeding sales of both Potter and Rings and that Ice Age could also give Rings a run for its money.
The next best true test of whether live action can compete with animation will come with Columbia TriStar's release of Spider-Man.
By the way, despite doing nearly three times the business at theaters, Titanic hasn't sold as many copies as Shrek either.
http://www.videobusiness.com/comment...=3692&catID=11

 

[Brian W.]

Take a look at this numbers Warner and all Full Screen Only promoters....

You must not have read the article on DVD File. The pan-and-scan sold almost as many copies as the widescreen -- 46% to 54%.

 

[Craig_T]

By the way, despite doing nearly three times the business at theaters, Titanic hasn't sold as many copies as Shrek either.

Um yea, Titanic was also featureless and more importantly released a good year later than it should've been.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

At least 3 of my co-workers who never buy dvds bought Lord of the Rings (in widescreen per my recommendation), so it is penetrating a lot of households that don't normally buy dvds.

I read in the paper that LOTR dvd is outselling the vhs by a margin of 6 to 1.

Without igniting a religious discussion, I feel I must mention that I know at least 3 people who will not buy Harry Potter or LOTR for religious reasons, but did buy Shrek.

 

[Adam_S]

Without igniting a religious discussion, I feel I must mention that I know at least 3 people who will not buy Harry Potter or LOTR for religious reasons, but did buy Shrek.

To me that is ridiculous, there's more to be offended at in Shrek than in Harry Potter, at least HP didn't have blatent sexual innuendos and directed adult and teenage humor (and it didn't rely on bodily functions for cheap laughs. (doesn't matter to me I still love both, but Monsters Inc. is still a better film than Shrek)



One thing that article doesn't take into account is the effort to which New Line went to inform the consumer that there would be two releases of the film, the basic version now and a superspecial edition in time for christmas. Those missing three or four million LOTR needed to pass HP may be the folks that opted to rent and wait it out until november.

Adam

 

[Daniel J]

for religious reasons, but did buy Shrek.

That's a shame. LOTR is by far the most christian-compatible movie I've seen in the last year. I wish people would do research before they dismiss titles like that.
Then again, I know people who do take a serious look at these sorts of issues before they make up their minds not to watch certain movies, and they need to be applauded for their initiative.
Hopefully we can get on with the discussion...
What is the word on fullscreen versions of Spiderman? If it's a two in one package (like Shrek), we'll get off without too many problems. But if they release a fulscreen-only version, you can bet your HDTV that it'll sell like hotcakes. And that's not what we want...

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

You must not have read the article on DVD File. The pan-and-scan sold almost as many copies as the widescreen -- 46% to 54%.

Not neccessarily. New Line shipped almost as many pan-and-scan copies as the widescereen, at the ratio you posted. Sales can be quite a different number.