Weekly OAR vs MAR Sales W/O 12/01/03 (1 Viewer)

[WillG]

Ok, here it is for the week. No OAR vs MAR new releases but here is what we have.

Number one was "Pirates of the Carribean" No MAR Release for this title. According to figures at Video Business 9.9 million DVDs were sold in the first week. And some factions claim that people want P&S. By these numbers, a WS only release does not seem to be stopping people from picking this one up. Hopefully studios will realize we don't really need this dual release nonsense

Number Two was "Finding Nemo"

Number three was "X-Men 2" WS. P&S fell to number 15

Number Four was "Bruce Almighty" WS. P&S Fell to number 13

Number Five was "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" The OAR re-release continues to climb into the top 5. Warner, plese give the those MAR "Flat Comedies" Anamorphic re-releases!

Number Six was "The Two Towers: Theatrical" WS. P&S did not make the top 20

Number Seven was "T3" WS P&S did not make the top 20

Number Eight was "The Two Towers: Exended Edition" No MAR release.

Number Nine was "Indiana Jones" WS. P&S did not make the top 20

Number Ten was "The Santa Clause 2" P&S did not make the top 20

Number Eleven was "The Matrix Reloaded" WS. P&S did not make the top 20

Number Twelve was "A Christmas Story: Special Edition"

Number Fourteen was "The Lion King"

Number Sixteen was "The Alien Quadrilogy" Was hoping it would be higher, but not bad for such a massive boxset that was somewhat costly (depending on where you bought it)

Number Seventeen was "Scarface" WS The P&S did not make the top 20

Number Eighteen was "Legally Blonde 2" No MAR Release

Number Nineteen was "Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life" WS P&S did not make the top 20

Number Twenty was "West Wing First Season"

Stats are from Video Business

These stats are also tracked at Widescreen Advocate

Happy Holidays

 

[Lev-S]

Amen to that sentiment, WillG. My position on the matter is this:

Produce the movie in it's entirety on DVD. If people want to want to watch it pan and scan, zoomed in, letterbox-eliminated, upside down while swinging to-and-fro, or through a kaleidascope then they can do whatever they want with their player on their TV. Some people the (of the shrinking minority) will oppose this of course and demand full screen. But this request is just plain stupid: If you don't care how much of the movie you are watching, then you don't really care about the movie. That is like people who rarely read books, except when on a long trip or when Oprah recommends it, demanding that ALL books being released come in an abridged version so that it is easier for them to get through. Give me a break. Kudos for Disney (POTC) and Sony/Columbia (Bad Boys II) for putting their foot down and growing a pair. People need to remember that they don't own the movies, the studios do.

 

[Paul_Scott]

Number Sixteen was "The Alien Quadrilogy" Was hoping it would be higher, but not bad for such a massive boxset that was somewhat costly (depending on where you bought it)

i dunno...that seems a bit disappointing to me.
yeah its expensive, but its first week street price was only about $25 more than the Indiana Jones set which has been out more than 4 weeks and probably wasn't discounted much last week if at all.
i suppose a lot of people will be picking up the first two films individually in Jan- Hopefully Fox won't rue all the effort put into the set and the restoration of the films (especially the first).
i have to think tho, that we will not be seeing more box sets of catalog titles on this scale again.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The only thing that skews Video Business results is that they don't include (to my knowledge) the behometh that is Wal*Mart since the mega-chain doesn't release their figures.

And Wal*Mart is one of the biggest pushers of P&S.

Still, very encouraging numbers. Nice to see that as people convert to DVD, they're just accepting widescreen as part of the deal.

 

[Malcolm R]

You can't compare this to IJ, as this was the very first release of all the IJ films. All the Alien films have been released in the past, including a previous box set of all 4 films (The Alien Legacy). These Alien films are becoming to Fox what Terminator 2 is to Artisan and The Evil Dead is to Anchor Bay.

 

[Randy A Salas]

The only thing that skews Video Business results is that they don't include (to my knowledge) the behometh that is Wal*Mart since the mega-chain doesn't release their figures.

Video Business' chart does too include Wal-Mart. Editor-in-chief Scott Hettrick assured me of that when I picked it up to run in the Star Tribune. Wal-Mart is not reflected in the retailer breakdown that runs with the chart, but neither are many other sellers.

 

[Paul_Scott]

You can't compare this to IJ, as this was the very first release of all the IJ films. All the Alien films have been released in the past, including a box set of all 4 films

true. that slipped my mind.

 

[WillG]

You can't compare this to IJ, as this was the very first release of all the IJ films. All the Alien films have been released in the past, including a box set of all 4 films

Plus, I think in the whole pantheon of DVD, IJ was more of a draw to more demographics than the Alien Quadrilogy is. Plus the IJ boxed set had a hell of a lot more promotion. I think it is great that it made the top 20. It means that a significant number of units were sold. Boxed sets usually do not make the top ten. The Looney Tunes Boxed Golden Collection never cracked the top ten, but that does not mean it did not sell healthilly.

 

[george kaplan]

I'm surprised it was that high. I realize that there are lots of people who don't love all three Indy movies, but I'm still willing to bet that any of them are more popular than Alien IV. I already have Alien and Aliens (the only ones I'm interested in), and will indeed pick up the new copies in January. But even if the new ones weren't coming out individually, there's no way I'd waste money (IMO) on Alien 3 and 4.

 

[WillG]

So I was watching CNN and they went over the top DVD sales. I am not sure of what week they were refering to but #1 was X-Men 2 (Wide) So far, so good, but they then listed number 2 as "Bruce Almighty" (Pan) I guess there are disputing soruces on sales. I know I have been listing stats off of Video Business, but has anyone see stats that blatantly contrast what I have listed?

 

[Randy A Salas]

has anyone see stats that blatantly contrast what I have listed?

Billboard's (via Soundscan, I believe) are often different than Video Business' and a week behind. It was for those reasons that I sought a better chart for the paper. Unfortunately, most media sources, such as CNN, cite Billboard.

Video Business claims that its chart is more complete and does include Wal-Mart, which Billboard's doesn't. If I recall correctly, Hettrick implied that it's because VB uses suppliers to Wal-Mart to measure its sales even though the retailer doesn't actually release those figures.

No chart is completely perfect. But after doing much research into it a few years ago, I decided that VB's was the best and made the switch. At the time--and I still think it's the case--the Star Tribune was the only paper in the country that ran VB's list, because I made a personal arrangement with Hettrick to do so.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Video Business' chart does too include Wal-Mart. Editor-in-chief Scott Hettrick assured me of that when I picked it up to run in the Star Tribune. Wal-Mart is not reflected in the retailer breakdown that runs with the chart, but neither are many other sellers.

Well, cool!