Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s “Ted” and Warner’s “The Dark Knight Rises” retain their number one and number two positions on national sales charts.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s Ted and Warner Bros’ The Dark Knight Rises retained their number one and number two positions on both national sales charts during the week ending December 23, with newcomer Pitch Perfect, also from Universal, besting a handful of new releases to debut in third place.
Pitch Perfect, which grossed $64.2 million at the box office, is turning out to the holiday season’s top overperformer in terms of home video sales, with first-week sales reportedly running up to 30 percent higher than expected at some key retail chains.
The musical comedy beat four other new releases that also came to home video the week before Christmas with theatrical credentials. Sony Pictures’ Total Recall remake, which earned $58.9 million in U.S. theaters, debuted at number six on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart, which tracks overall disc sales, and number four on Nielsen’s dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart.
Fox’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, the third installment in the Wimpy Kid franchise, rode its $49 million box office run to a number eight debut on First Alert (Number 16 on the Blu-ray Disc sales chart).
The horror sequel Resident Evil: Retribution ($42.3 million and the fifth film in the series), also from Sony Pictures, debuted at number 19 on First Alert and number 13 on the Blu-ray Disc chart.
And Warner’s Trouble with the Curve, Clint Eastwood’s latest, debuted at number 11 on First Alert and number 15 on the Blu-ray chart. The film, with Eastwood as an aging, ailing baseball scout, made $35.8 million in theaters.
Among the holdovers, Warner's The Dark Knight Trilogy landed at number 14 on First Alert and number nine on the Blu-ray chart. The fact that many shoppers purchased The Dark Knight Rises as part of the trilogy set instead of as a standalone disc led to Ted topping both charts by a narrow margin.
On theweekly rental chart, Total Recall debuted at number one while Resident Evil: Retribution bowed at number three. Both are from Sony, which unlike Universal, Warner and Fox, doesn’t hold back new releases from Netflix and/or Redbox.
Home entertainment numbers were obtained on Home Media Magazine.com.
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
