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

[BK007]

They see much better gross than theatrical, actually. I don't have a percentage handy, but it's pretty good.

But...there are expenses which average probably 30 to 40 % of revenue...which is, admittedly much better than average P&A to gross theatrical revenue. And...there are things like agreed upon returns, and price protection. Which, offset the relatively closer margins...retailers don't get to charge that much more than they pay, but they can return a bunch of shit the studio had to pay to produce.

But overall...margins are better in home video land than theatrical. Retailers aren't turning around and selling these movies for twice the wholesale, let's put it that way.

And BK007, this guy,,,sharing rentrak data...they...knew??

I'm never telling you people anything again!

 

Haha! Well, DVD sales are a very touchy topic. 

 

This guy was on a forum called ukmix about mostly music and he lasted a long time there, until he got too big for his boots and left and came to BOM.

 

I think having a topic titled DVD sales with actual data must've attracted some attention from those who'd rather keep it quiet. 

 

But that's just my memory talking, maybe he left because he didn't like us, but never saw him post anywhere again.

 

Isn't that why all HV metrics are in percentages and ratios? No one wants to reveal the actual sales figures whether it be DVD, Blu-Ray or digital. 

 

US is one of the few countries to not report attendance for movies either unlike Germany, most of Europe, Japan, South Korea, South America I think. 

[bapi]

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_hollywood_economist/2005/08/hollywoods_profits_demystified.html

 

I found this article which I remember reading when it was first published. So according to this, the cost is one-third and the gross profits are two-thirds of HV gross revenue. Hopefully some industry insider can back this up or give their valuable input on this. I was assuming the cost was two-thirds and Studio gross profit was one third. It looks like it is other way around.

 

BTW this model may have changed with declining dvd sales (incl. Blu-Ray) compared to pre 2006 period. The HV market now includes digital sales etc. It would be interesting to get an overview of HV revenue as it stands today. 

I read about 66% too and that was after Finding Nemo DVD sales...

 

And personally think that Harry Potter 4 number is wrong - Back in 2006 Nemo was still "the best-selling DVD of all time, with over 40 million copies sold".

[bapi]

Anyway DVD / VHS sales were huge and also I remember Finding Nemo even had around 85m after just 4 weeks from rentals.

Edited January 3, 2015 by bapi

[bapi]

So here's the challenge for some of you from foreign lands.  Do you have sales for these and other films in your region?  If I'd love to see them posted here.

I remember only one chart and only one number from that - Spider-Man 1 sold 10k DVDs in Czech Rep (Q1 2004). We had 1-disc and 2-disc editions and when were released they did cost 36-48 dollars.

 

But now HV market is basically dead here and we don't have any rentals anymore...

[jb007]

I read about 66% too and that was after Finding Nemo DVD sales...

 

And personally think that Harry Potter 4 number is wrong - Back in 2006 Nemo was still "the best-selling DVD of all time, with over 40 million copies sold".

Worldwide that could be correct at that time. Because Shrek and The Lion King numbers, while well over 50 million units, would have a big chunk of their numbers from VHS sales.

Edited January 3, 2015 by jb007

[RaidensSword]

Im sure its common with smaller / low key movies but are there many examples of blockbuster movies with big budgets that made more on home video than in theaters?

[bapi]

Worldwide that could be correct at that time. Because Shrek and The Lion King numbers, while well over 50 million units, would have a big chunk of their numbers from VHS sales.

Yeah, worldwide sounds realistic for HP4 but definitely it's not North America.

[bapi]

Im sure its common with smaller / low key movies but are there many examples of blockbuster movies with big budgets that made more on home video than in theaters?

Yeah, 300 - 276m from DVD and 210m from theaters.

[bapi]

Ed Norton in 2012:

 

"I think it would be much harder [to get a film like Fight Club made] today," Norton told Digital Spy. "It's right in that middle budget range that no-one wants to touch anymore. And DVDs are disappearing, no-one's going to buy a DVD in three years. It was kind of the secondary revenue that prompted them to make films like that. 

 

"The digital, on-demand and the subscription services, Netflix or Amazon, the revenues coming back from that are kind of pennies on the dollar to what it was to sell a DVD, so it's much harder."

[James]

IDK how reliable Wikipedia is, but concening HP4:

 

On its first day of release in North America, over 5 million copies were sold, recording a franchise high for first-day sales. Within its first week it sold over a total of 9 million units of combined sales of both the widescreen and full-screen versions of the DVD.^[37]

The UK edition was released on DVD on 20 March 2006 and became the fastest selling UK DVD ever, selling six copies per second on its first day of release. According to the Official Charts Company, the DVD sold 1.4 million copies in its first week alone. It is also available in a two-disc edition with special features similar to the North American two-disc edition.^[38]

Currently, the DVD holds the Guinness World Record for being the fastest selling DVD of all time. The achievement was added to the 2007 book edition of The Guinness World Records, which includes a picture of the award being presented to Dan Radcliffe on set of Order of the Phoenix at Leavesden Film Studios in April 2006.^[39]

 

 

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Goblet_of_Fire_%28film%29}

[terrestrial]

Is it possible, that The-Numbers cummulated all the 'complete Box set' versions into only one of all those Harry Potter movies?

[terrestrial]

IDK how reliable Wikipedia is, but concening HP4:

 

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Goblet_of_Fire_%28film%29}

 

Thank you a lot

 

 

Within its first week it sold over a total of 9 million units of combined sales of both the widescreen and full-screen versions of the DVD

 

The Numbers had them at 6,272,691 units for their 1st week, so the retailers might have been less digitalized at that time, means maybe a lot of numbers might have been reported later as we are used to it with BO details

[RaidensSword]

Yeah, 300 - 276m from DVD and 210m from theaters.

Thanks, is that just down to great WOM?

[James]

Thank you a lot

 

 

The Numbers had them at 6,272,691 units for their 1st week, so the retailers might have been less digitalized at that time, means maybe a lot of numbers might have been reported later as we are used to it with BO details

Considering it is reported it sold 5M copies in the fist day alone I find it hard to believe it only sld 1.2M or the rest of the week. Also, 6M seems weak for Guinness World Record.

Edited January 3, 2015 by James

[terrestrial]

Thanks, is that just down to great WOM?

 

I think some movies do really good with Disks... when someone's circle of friends, spouse,... does't/didn't share the interest (or the release month was bad for finding time) and so people buy disks to be able to watch certain movies when time / mood permits it.

I got that theory through dicussions with my friends, where especially action, fantasy and Sci-Fi movies are (too often IMHO) frowned at by the females and some movies released during family vacation time (we do our vacations mostly in countries with another language then German) tend to end in the DVD... shelfs. For me it is the same, but the other way around: I can't stand comedies and romace (hubby can't stand them too), but will watch anything else, but hubby is a bit cultural high-nosed, so I watch the big event / visuall interesting movies in the cinemas with the younger generation or male friends and buy the other movies as discs.

 

Another reason is:

why pay a lot in the cinemas, drive a long way,.... if the behaviour of some youngsters take away from the experience? Movies like 300 were sadly interesting also for rather loud co-viewers (300 co-customers behaviour was a big theme in my circle of friends), so no repeat viewing at all (and warned friends not at all in the cinemas), but a disc instead.

We older ones also tend to have rather nice audio systems... some even have an own room or... for watching movies. And German techno fanatic typically calibration.

[baumer]

 

Ed Norton in 2012:

 

"I think it would be much harder [to get a film like Fight Club made] today," Norton told Digital Spy. "It's right in that middle budget range that no-one wants to touch anymore. And DVDs are disappearing, no-one's going to buy a DVD in three years. It was kind of the secondary revenue that prompted them to make films like that. 

 

"The digital, on-demand and the subscription services, Netflix or Amazon, the revenues coming back from that are kind of pennies on the dollar to what it was to sell a DVD, so it's much harder."

 

 

This exact same sentiment was echoed by the producer of Friday the 13th for Platinum Dunes.  He said that when they were making films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and F13th, the HV sales were enough to justify the films budget but when the HV market began to crash, low budget horror movies were harder to make because the theatrical revenue wasn't enough to cover costs.

[theultimatebiu]

Yep. I think this new avenue of streaming will kill the direct-to-dvd film business. I haven't purchased a DVD in at least a year. The convenience of downloading your movie straight to your laptop/pc/tablet/ps4/xbox etc.... is just too strong.

 

Also, I think people forget how flipping popular Goblet of Fire was. It was probably the most easily accessible movie of the whole franchise. 

[baumer]

When you take the numbers from the first post, Twilight actually has the best budget to gross ratio, followed very closely by Potter (which is just one more reason why Potter is such a freak of box office proportions) as Twilight made about 10X it's budget from theater and HV where as Potter's is about 7.4X.

[kayumanggi]

Why isn't there a website dedicated to Home Video sales?

[baumer]

Insert Dehaan gif here ( in regards to kayus question).