why are top movies and top video rankings so different? (1 Viewer)

[Andrew s wells]

Not saying that sucessful movies don't do well on video, but looking at the top movie of all time (titanic), any reason its not the top selling DVD? Jurassic park is up there as well in the rankings of box office performance, but not in the same league on DVD sales wise. The phantom menace beaten in sales by men in black? You could possibly look at my first two choices and say something like, most own it on videocassete already , so they didnt buy the dvd, but for movies like men in black (which took forever to come out on dvd) passing the phantom mnace sales wise,it kinda shoots down that theory. (There are other examples as well). any thoughts?

 

[Patrick McCart]

What is popular may not be good and what is good may not be popular.

This is evidenced by Fox's decision to charge $60 dollars (3 DVD's) to get Sunrise and Universal releasing 6 editions of American Pie while Duck Soup is not on DVD.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Marketing (or lack there of).
Any time you question why something sold more or less than you think it should have, it is because of
Marketing
My personal theories behind the marketing of two DVD's
Titanic, was released theatrically before DVD had it's major boom (ie: Right now!). And in general, movies that make too-much money in theaters don't stand-up to repeat viewings. Thus, by the time titanic was no longer in theaters, 85% of people who saw the film didn't care to watch it 50-more times at home, and instead went to see the next big blockbuster.
Jurassic Park, had too many versions on DVD. I could get the DTS version, or the more-extra stuff version. And even then the DTS-version had some audio troubles (or so I hear on this forum). I'm waiting for the 10-megs-a-second super DVD version. Thus I don't own it yet, and I'm sure many others are waiting for "the best" version of this movie.

 

[Bo Myers]

I think that home video sales are very impulse-driven. The families who grab Men in Black while shopping for pillow cases at Target tend to outweigh the film buffs who grab Phantom Menace on release date.Also, the newest releases tend to overshadow the older ones as DVD continually permeates middle America. By that logic, don't be surprised if The Scorpion King's numbers rival The Matrix (Yikes!!).

Oh, and Patrick, I would love to get Duck Soup on DVD!

 

[george kaplan]

And as far as Titanic goes, a very large chunk of that audience was 12 year old girls who went to see Leo multiple times. It's doubtful that that is a group that buys a large number of dvds, and they certainly wouldn't buy it more than once even if they did.

 

[Damin J Toell]

I think that home video sales are very impulse-driven. The families who grab Men in Black while shopping for pillow cases at Target tend to outweigh the film buffs who grab Phantom Menace on release date.

Are MIB and The Phantom Menace really in such separate categories? Do only "film buffs" like TPM? We're not talking about a Fellini film here. If anything, from online reaction, it seems most "film buffs" disliked TPM to a large degree.
DJ

 

[Brian Lawrence]

Pay no attention to DVD sales, that's my advise. Consider that the shallow crap-fest Fast and the Furious probably sold more copies in it's first day of release than Vertigo has sold in it's entire 4 years of availability on the dvd.

 

[Bolivar G]

Consider that the shallow crap-fest Fast and the Furious probably sold more copies in it's first day of release than Vertigo has sold in it's entire 4 years of availability on the dvd.

I love Fast and the Furious!! Its in my top 10 all time favorite movies.
Its a fun and entertaining movie. What movies are supposed to be anyways? Not always educational , etc.