Our DVD and Blu-ray sales estimates are based on weekly retail surveys, which we use to build a weekly market share estimate for each title we are tracking. The market share is converted into a weekly sales estimate based on industry reports on the overall size of the market, including reports published in Media Play News.

For example, if our weekly retail survey estimates that a particular title sold 1% of all units that week, and the industry reports sales of 1,500,000 units in total, we will estimate 15,000 units were sold of that title. The consumer spending estimate is based on the average sales price for the title in the retailers we survey.

We refine our estimates from week to week as more data becomes available. In particular, we adjust weekly sales figures for the quarter once the total market estimates are published by the Digital Entertainment Group. Figures will therefore fluctuate each week, and totals for individual titles can go up or down as we update our estimates.

Because sales figures are estimated based on sampling, they will be more accurate for higher-selling titles.

Limited and Virtual Releases: The Box Office Won’t Die this Weekend

July 30th, 2020

No less than 15 films are debuting in theaters around the country this weekend, which makes this the biggest weekend for new releases since March 13. Eight of the new films are earning decent pre-release buzz, and all but one of those are earning good reviews. I think She Dies Tomorrow has the best shot at earning some measure of box office success, but as a Canadian, it is my patriotic duty to support Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind. More...

Limited and VOD Releases: Prospects for Limited Releases are Never, Rarely this Dire

March 13th, 2020

The COVID-19 outbreak hangs heavily over the film business this weekend, and raises a lot of questions about how much business we will see at the box office. It is going to affect family films most of all, because families are more likely to stay home than adults when it comes to diseases like this. However, the second group to be affected could be art house films, because these tend to only play in large cities, and large cities have been hit harder by the outbreak so far. The advise is to stay three feet away from anyone else, which is impossible if you are using the New York City subway system, for example. I don’t think any of the films on this week’s list are going to thrive, at least not in theaters. That’s too bad, because there are several that deserve audiences, including Big Time Adolescence, Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, and others. More...

2020 Preview: January

January 1st, 2020

It’s the year 2020, the year where we find out how many times you can say, “Well, hindsight is 20/20.” before you get punched. On the positive side, while December wasn’t a great month, it was good enough to help 2019 end on a positive note, a positive note that should continue into January. There are no real potential monster hits coming out this month, but there are three films that have a real shot at $100 million domestically. These are, in alphabetical order, 1917, which will rely on Awards Season to get to the century mark. Bad Boys for Life will have a much, much easier time getting to $100 million, assuming people still care about the franchise 17 years later. Finally, Dolittle is looking like a disaster with a really troubled production; however, a $100 million run isn’t out of the question and if it can get there, it will at least save face. As for last January, Glass was the biggest hit of the month in terms of raw dollars, but The Upside was more impressive, as it is one the biggest hits in STX Entertainment’s history. We need two of the three potential $100 million hits to reach that mark to keep pace with last year, but we also have one more weekend to get there. More...

The Informer Trailer

February 4th, 2019

Thriller starring Joel Kinnaman opens March 22 ... Full Movie Details.

Honorably discharged Special Ops soldier Pete Koslow’s world is turned upside-down when he is jailed after a fight to protect his wife. He’s given a chance for early release by becoming an informant for the FBI and using his covert skills in an operation to take down The General, the most powerful crime boss in New York. But when the FBI sting meant to finally earn Koslow his freedom results in the death of an undercover NYPD cop, Koslow finds himself caught in the crossfire between the mob and the FBI. More...