How HV sales used to turn big box office hits into massive box office GIANTS

[langer]

31 minutes ago, SteveJaros said:

 

Spectre was far more successful at the box office so looks like TGD is out-performing its theatrical gross a bit in home sales (not that this is saying much, LOL). So that will lessen the bath Disney/Pixar took on it, I guess.

 

Animation movies tend to do better than live action on HV.  Original movies also tend to do better than sequels.  but you are right that TGD is recouping on HV the hit it took during the theatrical run.   

[cannastop]

4 minutes ago, langer said:

 

Animation movies tend to do better than live action on HV.  Original movies also tend to do better than sequels.  but you are right that TGD is recouping on HV the hit it took during the theatrical run.   

I think it's more that family movies do better on HV. It's just that most all family movies are animated features now.

[langer]

2 minutes ago, cannastop said:

I think it's more that family movies do better on HV. It's just that most all family movies are animated features now.

 

True, HP and POTC movies were beast on HV and were considered family movies.  Good point. 

[SteveJaros]

The Lion King has to be the biggest home-video monster ever. It has about $180m in DVD/BD sales, but back in 1995, it sold $350m worth of VHS tapes its *first week* in release. Adjusted for inflation, that's more than $500 million in today's money! This article is a nice time capsule:

 

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1995-03-07/news/9503070102_1_video-lion-king-snow-white

Edited May 17, 2016 by SteveJaros

[edroger3]

Biggest Blu Ray sellers after 2nd week

 

Frozen 4,73M / 94,9M$ (20,0$ AVG)

DM2 4,02M / 80.5M$ (20,0$ AVG)

SW TFA 3,67M / 91,8M$ (25,0$ AVG)

Avengers 1 3,63M /79,1M$ (21,8$ AVG)

Avatar 3,62M / 73,2M$ (20,2$ AVG)

[baumer]

11 minutes ago, SteveJaros said:

The Lion King has to be the biggest home-video monster ever. It has about $180m in DVD/BD sales, but back in 1995, it sold $350m worth of VHS tapes its *first week* in release. Adjusted for inflation, that's more than $500 million in today's money! This article is a nice time capsule:

 

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1995-03-07/news/9503070102_1_video-lion-king-snow-white

 

But it's a completely different time now with HV...HV is basically dead. And yes Lion King was huge but don't forget there were a litany of other films that sold a shit load of VHS tapes too way back in the day.

[SteveJaros]

12 minutes ago, Baumer said:

 

But it's a completely different time now with HV...HV is basically dead. And yes Lion King was huge but don't forget there were a litany of other films that sold a shit load of VHS tapes too way back in the day.

 

Yes, but nobody sold the shitload that TLK did. It set the record and holds it to this day.

 

It would be great to get numbers for particular films on streaming rentals and purchases. People are still consuming "home movies", they just aren't buying physical media as much.  I haven't bought a BD disc in about a year and a half, but I rent films on Amazon and You Tube I missed in the theater probably once a week. 

Edited May 17, 2016 by SteveJaros

[baumer]

Just now, SteveJaros said:

 

Yes, but nobody sold the shitload that TLK did. It set the record and holds it to this day.

 

It would be great to get numbers on streaming rentals and purchases. I haven't bought a BD disc in about a year and a half, but I rent films on Amazon and You Tube I missed in the theater probably once a week. 

 

Do you have a link for the Lion King record setting VHS sales?  I find it hard to believe it sold more than Star Wars and other giants of their day.

[baumer]

So according to imdb Lion King is the top seller with 55 million VHS.  Interesting.  I'm shocked that is the biggest number for VHS sales.

[SteveJaros]

1 hour ago, Baumer said:

 

Do you have a link for the Lion King record setting VHS sales?  I find it hard to believe it sold more than Star Wars and other giants of their day.

 

Back in the 1990s, the Disney animated films dominated the VHS market, easily outselling hits like Jurassic Park and the Star Wars trilogy. Both Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast are among the best-selling VHS of all time, with well over 20 million sold in the USA each. 

Edited May 17, 2016 by SteveJaros

[SteveJaros]

6 hours ago, Baumer said:

So according to imdb Lion King is the top seller with 55 million VHS.  Interesting.  I'm shocked that is the biggest number for VHS sales.

 

Lion King truly has put up staggering financials over the years:

 

WW Box Office .... $900m+

HV Sales ............  55 million units (close to $1B, #1 all time)

Soundtrack Sales .. 15 million (#1 among animated films all time)

 

In addition, TLK has been a merchandise machine, selling over $1 Billion in merchandise in 1994 alone with sales to this day.

 

And, the Lion King Broadway production is the #1 play of all time, with over $6 Billion in ticket sales, and that doesn't even count merchandising.

 

It's arguably the most profitable single film of all time. To beat it, you'd have to count entire franchises, like Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, etc.

Edited May 17, 2016 by SteveJaros

[bapi]

Yeah, I even read about 1.5B from merchandise in 1994 alone.

[bapi]

15 hours ago, SteveJaros said:

The Lion King has to be the biggest home-video monster ever. It has about $180m in DVD/BD sales, but back in 1995, it sold $350m worth of VHS tapes its *first week* in release. Adjusted for inflation, that's more than $500 million in today's money! This article is a nice time capsule:

 

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1995-03-07/news/9503070102_1_video-lion-king-snow-white

Looks like it made even more money from DVD sales because The Numbers only counts it from 2011 but it was released in 2003 on DVD for the first time and already made 136M that year. Wow.

[Porthos]

15 hours ago, Baumer said:

 

Do you have a link for the Lion King record setting VHS sales?  I find it hard to believe it sold more than Star Wars and other giants of their day.

 

Don't forget that for the longest time, Star Wars was "Priced to Rent" instead of "Priced to Buy".  I.e. it would sell in the mid-$80s and never get into the mid-$30s tier that was 'standard' for a movie when it reached "Price to Buy".  Until a movie hit the discount bins, that is.

 

I don't know if it's been brought up in this thread, but that's one thing that DVD truly revolutionized:  The standardization of the "Price to Buy" model.  IMO it was because the studios wanted to kill off what was left of appeal to the videophiles that made up the chase the Laserdisc market.  But since, thanks to the quirks of the market, Laserdisc buyers were used to an immediate "Price to Buy" paradigm as opposed to waiting six to nine (or even twelve) months for a film to leave the "Price to Rent" tier and move to the "Price to Buy" teir, DVDs more or less followed suit.

So it's not all that surprising to me, as the price points back in the day skewed things quite a bit.

[Maxmoser3]

E.T. Did great when it first came to VHS.

[langer]

21 hours ago, Baumer said:

So according to imdb Lion King is the top seller with 55 million VHS.  Interesting.  I'm shocked that is the biggest number for VHS sales.

 

Maybe it has to do with SW being on both VHS and Betamax in the 80s while Lion King being only in VHS when it got released?  Just throwing that out there. 

[johnboy3434]

Also, and this may seem like a stupid question, but is that counting every VHS release for a movie as a single run? Because the original Star Wars was rereleased God knows how many times.

[RandomCat]

Also, splitting the difference further by Star Wars being released singularly, or in a set with all three movies. And then Split between original VHS releases and Special Edition releases.

[SteveJaros]

7 hours ago, langer said:

 

Maybe it has to do with SW being on both VHS and Betamax in the 80s while Lion King being only in VHS when it got released?  Just throwing that out there. 

 

The thing is, the VCR tape market was just a lot smaller in the 1980s. I've posted a link below to a Billboard VC chart from November, 1984. Notice that at the time, the RIAA certified a tape as "platinum" if it sold/rented 75,000 units and/or had $3 million in combined rental and sales income! That gives you a good idea about the scale of the market at that time. An exceptionally good seller/renter was a tape that generated a mere $3 million in income.

 

And notice on the chart that a very big movie of that time, the original 1981 "Raiders of the Lost Ark", had been in release for 49 weeks and yet STILL had not been certified as platinum!

 

Ten years later, when the Lion King was released, the market was immensely larger. It sold $350m worth of tapes its first week, that would be equivalent to more than 100x platinum using 1985 standards. For comparison, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is the biggest-selling record in the USA, and it is 30x platinum.

 

So when big films like Star Wars and ET were released for VCR in the 1980s, they sold in far, far fewer quantities, there is no chance they sold anywhere near what a film like Lion King did, in terms of rentals or sales:

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=nyQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=VHS+sales+1984&source=bl&ots=1DZQDq5NJA&sig=TCf59Orid2E1A5n1Zd1Pf423rlI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwii86bG6OPMAhUo2oMKHRZpBjYQ6AEIUjAI#v=onepage&q=VHS%20sales%201984&f=false

Edited May 18, 2016 by SteveJaros

[Joel M]

It's amazing how Lion King continues to make so much money 20 years later. It's definately the biggest animated hit of all time and it will probably stay there for ever.