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Willy Wonka Widescreen Sales? (1 Viewer)

David Illingworth II

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Does anybody know what the final score was on that one? Did all our efforts come to nothing or did we move a bunch of units? I had never planned on buying one, but when the whole shebang went down the way it did I signed the petition and gladly ponied the $17 to DeepDiscount.

What's the numbers?
 

Peter Kline

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Good question. Interesting that WB hasn't trumpeted any figures to show that the p&s was the right initial choice and that is sold more copies then the WS version. Hey WB wanna comment?
 

Heinz W

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I deliberately avoided buying this through an e-tailer as soon as it was available. I just bought it two weeks ago at a B&M. I wanted to make sure that 99 percent of the sales weren't sold through during the first two weeks of availability. I don't want Warner to think that only HT nuts are going to buy the OAR version (although that is highly likely). I did sign the petition for OAR Wonka, BTW.

I'm also curious as to how well it sold/is selling.
 

Ryan L B

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It probably did not sell well because there were no major retailers selling the widescreen version. The only places I know of that were are the internet sites.
 

Patrick McCart

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I didn't buy Wonka until I found the matted version at a Best Buy.

Sure, I was tempted, but I don't really feel like buying a title twice because I was lazy one day.
 

David Lambert

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It probably did not sell well because there were no major retailers selling the widescreen version. The only places I know of that were are the internet sites.
Best Buy, Borders, and Suncoast, to name 3 I've seen it at.

I say Suncoast but maybe it was FYE. A mall-based store, anyway.
 

Rob Lutter

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I was surprised to see that the warehouse store BJs ONLY carries the widescreen version.
 

Peter Kline

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Sales on that site are from Amazon.com only. They do not reflect total sales from all sources. But here's what they have:

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

2,513 Widescreen

533 P&S
 

Andrew 'Ange Hamm' Hamm

Supporting Actor
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In many places, the WS version was a few bucks more than the P&S version, which may have played right into our hands. They may have thought people would gravitate toward the cheaper version, but I think there's still an inherent desire in the DVD crowd to get the "better" version when two are available, and the "better" version is usually the more expensive one. As if the WS version was an SE and the P&S wasn't, you know?
 

Chad Gregory

Supporting Actor
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Oct 11, 2000
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Not to mention that those are the ranking, right now, not last week, not last month, not total sales.

Actually those numbers are worthless, you could go to Amazon yourself and look up the same numbers at any given point in time.

So I guess the question remains, does anyone have actual sales numbers?

-Chad

I did my part, one for me, two as gifts...
 

Mark Zimmer

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Another issue with the B&M sales is that even on the delayed street date, the widescreen version was nearly impossible to find. My local Best Buy didn't stock it until well over a month later, when the publicity and hype had long run out. Of course, the promo of the lower price that applied to the P&S version when it was released didn't apply to the WS version, so that further depressed sales.
 

Peter Kline

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Sorry, I misread the chart. Obviously totally useless. Back to the drawing board! Actually one can find total sales from retail from Videoscan. Unfortunately the subscription rate is very high. Perhaps somebody on this forum has access?
 

Joshua Clinard

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Totally useless?!? :angry: I paid 10 dollars for that script. I think it is a great thing. It doesn't track total sales. So what? It is meant to show that internet shoppers prefer widescreen. It tracks sales as Amazon.com one of the largest internet stores, and they move a lot of product. More than your local Wal-mart, I'm sure. If a DVD is a hot seller at Amazon.com then it must be selling a significant number of titles. The majority of the time I check that script, which happens to be daily, most if not all of the titles on the page happen to be leading in WS sales, most of the time by a wide margin as well. Every now and then P&S will be leading, but not by a whole lot. I still think it is somewhat useful.
 

Peter Kline

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Joshua, no offense meant. :frowning: But Amazon is not the bellweather of how product is selling. They're just one of the bigger cogs in the scheme of things. The only way to get reasonably accurate figures is from Videoscan (or the distributor, WB). They provide appx. 75% of total sales. There's still some sales that don't get in their computers. I work in the music business and SoundScan has the same percentage for audio.
 

Joshua Clinard

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Not really, because VidoeScan does not track WS/PS releases seperatly anymore. So my tracker is the ONLY thing at this point that shows us any information, even if it's a small perchentage. At least it's something.
 

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