DVD Sales - P&S Ahead (1 Viewer)

[WillG]

Was looking at the DVD sales chart on DVD file, and the P&S of Red Dragon beat out the W/S for the number one spot. The W/S of Jackass fell a few places below the full as well. Not very good. Although, I suppose that if you factor in the Director's Edtion of Red Dragon which is number 7. W/S may have edged out the F/S. It's still not good to see the P&S version of a title take the #1 spot though.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I've been following the sales charts at the Video Business Magazine site for several months and with great consistency that widescreen versions are beating out the P&S. I'd say it happens about 8 out of 10 times.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Malcolm R]

I was shocked that the WS version of "Jackass" topped the FS version. Usually sophomoric comedy titles like that have the FS far ahead (same with "Mr. Deeds" a while back).

As you said, sales for the Director's Edition of "Red Dragon" should be combined with WS totals, since if there was no DE 99% of those people would have bought the WS disc.

 

[Chris Farmer]

I saaw the same thing. Unfortunately, without DVD File's normal percentage rations (so we know how one did compared to the other), it's impossible to say where things fell. If it was for every 100 full screens sold, there were 90 widescreens and 40 director's editions, that's still a 30% edge for w/s.

On a similar note though, it was nice to be in my local Best Buy yesterday and see nothing but full screen copies of Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets sitting there unsold, with tons of huge gaps where the w/s had been. Every last w/s copy was gone, and there were a ton of them when I bought it, so here at least is an instance of w/s blowing away f/s by a huge margin.

 

[Travis_W]

I've seen the same thing with Chamber of Secrets. VERY rarely do I see people buy FS around my location. Only place where WS didn't sell was Wal-Mart and that was only because they stocked FS like 75 to 25. My Family Video stocks more widescreen most of the time and Hollywood Video nearby stocks all widescreen. If only Blockbuster would follow the pattern...and lower their outrageous prices.

 

[WillG]

Yeah, guess you have some valid points. If C.O.S. Full Screen outdoes W/S on the charts, I give up! I was in Circuit city the other day and saw the rack empty on W/S, Full Screen was there. However it's hard to say. C.C. is kind of unfriendly to W/S (at least mine) So they could have ridiculously overbought on FS and Sold out of W/S quickly and will have F/S for the rest of that title's life. That was definatley the case there for Sorcerer's Stone. But more significantly was this. My Blockbuster was a W/S location, then defected for awhile to F/S, but it looks like they may be going back to W/S. I was astonished to see C.O.S. in W/S for rental. I was in my local Supermarket the otherday and say all F/S C.O.S. No surprise there, right? But I wen't back a couple of days later to see a SUPERMARKET actually put out some W/S Copies. I went back a couple of days later..W/S all gone with at least 5 F/S remaining.

I guess with this week's chart even though Red Dragon F/S was #1 W/S was just below it, so the 2 could not have been too far apart and if you factor in the Director's Edition, W/S likely won. With Jackass, who cares I guess, I somehow doubt that movie was carefully "Composed" for it's TAR. I guess I just get concerned that places like B.B. will read these charts and ditch W/S (which mine did, until recently when they started going back to W/S, knock on wood)

 

[Malcolm R]

Blockbuster seems to waffle weekly on the issue of AR. My store started out mostly widescreen, with a few titles in pan-and-scan (i.e. "Minority Report" was WS, but "The Bourne Identity" was P&S). Then, they seemed to go to P&S for "Jackass" and "One Hour Photo." Now, this week, they seem to be back to WS again with "Ghost Ship" and "Harry Potter" all in WS.

Go figure.

 

[Chris Farmer]

I know at my Best Buy they stocked W/S, and they said they were shipping in new W/S ASAP to replace the sold ones, so it's not like they understocked it.

Now if only Disney would acknowledge that this "kid's movie's" W/S blows away it's F/S sales and we might really start getting in good shape.

 

[WillG]

How Did COS end up doing (W/S vs P/S)?

 

[Tony-B]

WS beat out FS. But the same cannot be said for Drumline...

 

[WillG]

Yeah, but I'd rather have a Really Big Release like COS win in W/S over Drumline. Definately more of a major victory especially when you consider its "Kid Friendly" Status

 

[WillG]

"WS beat out FS. But the same cannot be said for Drumline... "


Have to Fault Fox on that one partly since they promoted the Full Screen DVD in their Ad campaign for "Drumline"

 

[Jesse Skeen]

They MUST STOP CALLING pan n scan "FULL SCREEN"!!!

 

[Tony-B]

How'd they promote the FS version? Did they show a picture of the FS version? Jesse, that is a great idea. People will be more curious about what it means.

 

[WillG]

Yeah Exactly, In contrast, the Ads for COS showed a neutral box with not W/S F/S banner at the top.

I don't think you are going to see studios stop calling MAR "Full Screen" anytime soon. Not every full frame transfer is P/S (although, I think a transfer that is pure open matte is rare, if one even exists at all)

 

[Malcolm R]

I've always favored "Theatrical Version" and "Television Version."

 

[Clint B]

Or how about "Theatrical Version" and "Version Where You Get Ripped Off Because You Pay Full Price For Less Than A Full Movie?"

 

[Tony-B]

Version Where You Get Ripped Off Because You Pay Full Price For Less Than A Full Movie

That will teach them!

 

[John Berggren]

I was shocked that the WS version of "Jackass" topped the FS version. Usually sophomoric comedy titles like that have the FS far ahead (same with "Mr. Deeds" a while back).

Now how do Blockbuster's purchases work into this if at all? They don't have rental agreements on DVDs, so I'd think they'd be part of general sales. Blockbuster has a HUGE copy depth in full screen for both titles.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Blockbuster has the ORIGINAL rental deal, the sweet deal that has killed or flooded with porn most mom&pop rental stores. They have exclusive copy-depth deals with ALL the studios.

Typically with a title like Harry Potter or LOTR, Supermarkets, Drugstores, all kinds of places who don't usually carry videos buy them. This inflates the P&S numbers quite a bit, because they won't touch wide