Live Free or Die Hard Sells Almost 100,000 Copies
Posted by Dave Cowl on November 28, 2007
Filed Under: Blu-ray, Format War, Studios
The Hollywood Reporter article on increased media sales for Black Friday includes some interesting nuggets on HD Media sales.
The first is that Live Free or Die Hard exceeded expectations by 20%, including almost 100,000 for the Blu-ray Disc edition.
The article also notes strong sales for Disney title Santa Clause 3 and New Line title Hairspray which is effectively exclusive to Blu-ray due to the lack of Region Coding on HD DVD. Animated features Ratatouille and Shrek 3 also sold well for their respective formats.
According to the article it was a strong week for Blu-ray Disc with 72.6% market share, and the rash of HD DVD players at promotional pricing as low at $98 did not have a positive affect on media sales for HD DVD, which garnered 27.4% of the market last week.
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These numbers are a shocker to me. Many people were thinking that Star Trek would put the numbers to even favor HD. Alas, they didnt even come close. Once again the sales data is suggesting that the $99 player effect is not getting what the HD-DVD camp had hoped for. It appears that the PS3 effect is widening the gap. Now Im really excited about the numbers for Dec. 4th. That could be an 80+ week.
Arent things getting interesting Dave?
It will be interesting to see an update of which camp has sold the most standalone players. Disc sales don’t mean as much these days as many people (myself included) almost never buy movies…Netflix or BBuster Total Access makes so much more sense.
Star Trek was never going to even the field…did you see the price on that thing? Blu-Ray definitely had a stronger selection that week…what was it, 10 major releases vs. 2 for HD?
HD has a pretty strong slate to close the year, so that should be interesting.
I don’t know about you, C, but I’m excited for quite a few films that are going to be released this holiday season. Here are the ones I’m most eager to pick up, or receive as gifts
The Bourne Trilogy (Amazon Exclusive)Harry Potter CollectionBlade Runner The KingdomPan’s Labyrinth Anchorman (Not expecting this to be demo material like the others, but I just love this movie too damn much not to buy it in High Def, hehe)
While Blu-ray had a healthy sales lead over the holidays, I found this chart rather interesting. Granted, it’s only data that’s pulled from Amazon, but it’s still interesting nonetheless. Top 100 in the Past 90 Days
C, Im curious what films you are referring to for HD-DVD. It seems to me that bluray has the far more interesting selection.Bourne is the only film exclusively on HD-DVD that I will be buying from here on out. All other films are bluray. I will buy around 15 more blurays and 1 HD-DVD.
It certainly is getting interesting. To be honest, after Ratatouille week was not as good as I expected for BD, I was somewhat surprised by the ratio this week. It is also interesting to me that the region coding issue for New Line appears to have cost more than expected at this critical time. Though for me Pans Lab is the main New Line title that I want – maybe Rush Hour 3 also. Bourne 3 will certainly be a good seller for HD DVD, as will The Simpsons and Pirates 3 for Blu-ray, and of course Potter for both. It is interesting that James has noted the Amazon data recently – I had also seen a shift at Amazon. I think it is mainly tied to certain promotions there… I guess the next few weeks will be amusing to say the least.
Yeah, Dave, I think that the next few weeks are going to be a complete and utter mad dash for all kinds of HD hardware/software, and now that the Venturer is joining the party, things could really start heating up. I wonder when Blu-ray will debut their first sub-$300 player, with comparable features to HD DVD (ie. PiP, Persistent Storage, Ethernet), or whether it will simply be an old model or a new bare bones unit. Obviously, it’s only a matter of time, but it would be in their best interests to drop it sooner rather than later.
A lot of people based their predictions on amazon and dvdempire and ended up being way off. Dont believe? Go to AVS and ull see the crazy predictions people were puting out.In short, I have little faith in amazon rankings at this point. Given the strength of the upcoming bluray exclusive slate, I have little reason to believe these numbers will not get bigger for bluray. Let the games begin!
@Dave, I think Ratatouille is showing good staying power and could end up being one of the overall top sellers for bluray. Something else I have noticed is that it seems to me that bluray titles also have more staying power into the following weeks. In many cases, the numbers for the week after a big title has ended up being bigger than the week before.
I can’;t believe that many people threw down wasted money on a premature (PG-13) edition of Die Hard 4. FOX even admitted there "wasn’t enough time" which to me spells a re-release. I was so tempted to buy the box set, as a huge fan of the franchise, but FOX has already released it so many times over on DVD … I don’t want to get ripped off. I agree with Zito on the Netflix & BB method, that’s what I do (and @ no extra charge for HD/BD?!). Devil’s advocate, what 15 Blu Ray’s are you talking about? I only counted three worth getting (and that’s assuming you are a Pirates fan) aside from Harry Potter which is Dual Format anyway (again, assuming you’re a fan or have kids). I’m most excited about Bourne, and already pre-ordered all three from Amazon. Interesting how we only see sales numbers when Blu Ray wins … and that is coming from a neutral owner by the way.
I too am curious to know which 15 exclusive new releases you’re looking to buy this holiday, DA.
I never said exclusive, but most of them are: Im getting: Mr. and Mrs. Smith Cast AwaySuperbad,PotC 3Harry Potter 1-5Blade RunnerSimpsons Terminator 3Rush Hour 3Legend of Zorro Ok, so thats 14. Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Cast Away have not been delayed and are already shipping. For HD-DVD:Bourne Supremacy
I am not sure I care too much about adding violence or language to Die Hard 4 – the version I saw in the cinema was fine – not like any artisitic integrity got compromised there… still, I may wait for unrated – not decided yet.
I agree that it is interesting that the ratio was published early in this case. Perhaps the Hollywood Reporter has an agenda. That said the timeliness of the report and who made it doesnt change the numbers…
For me, Superbad, Potters1-5, Pirates3, Pans Lab and probably Simpsons. Though I also bet that promotional title pricing is not over… so who knows what else
DA, just curious, why would not get T3 or Harry Potter on HD DVD, when they are the same price, and have a richer feature set (in the case of T3, a true PiP/IME experience)? Bear in mind, I’m not trying to be a smart ass here, or bust your balls, but since you’re a dual supporter, I would think you’d want the better of the two releases no?
I choose to support bluray at this time and will only buy Warner titles on bluray. Those features honestly mean nothing to me. The movie itself is what matters. The only way I will buy Warner titles on HD-DVD is if they go exclusive to HD-DVD. Right now Universal films and Transformers are the only films I have on HD-DVD.
I don’t necessarily care about adding violence or language, but FOX has stated, as has Bruce Willis that the PG13 version was watered down to attract a younger and larger audience. I want the original intended film. That’s where I see FOX compromising things. I won’t buy their Blu Ray discs because they are notorious for re-releasing their movies, to me more than anyone else does.
@James – How does a ‘true PiP experience’ differ from a fake one? I am really curious since it is clear that many HD DVD titles could add a full second encode of the movie at the same bitrate with room to spare. So I am curious as to why, especially with Warner titles, this ‘true PiP’ is so important.Personally I would prefer if they ditched the PiP and used higher bitrate encodes from sharper masters. Transformers has a pretty nice bitrate (averages over 20 Mbps) – Paramount/DreamWorks at least appears to see the value in that (even if it comes at the cost of having to choose PiP or lossless audio). I would choose the better audio myself – the time I have to be watching the whole movie over to see some making of track is pretty limited… @Ryan – certainly the double dip is coming. The official word as I recall was that they didn’t have time in the window to do an HD mastering of the unrated. Not sure if I buy that or not…
Thanks for the response Dave, glad to see I’m not alone in noticing that. : )