By: Scott Johnson on August 22, 2012
Comicbook.com reported over the weekend how reports from stores indicated that The Hunger Games DVD was selling extremely well. Comicbook.com also visited a number of stores, many of which were completely sold out or only had a few of the Blu-ray copies left.
Well, Lionsgate has now officially released that the Hunger Games DVD and Blu-ray units sold 3.8 million copies in its first weekend of release in North America. 3.8 million copies is certainly an impressive number, but is it a record? It is a record for this year, as it eclipsed 2012 previous record holder The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, which sold 3.2 million DVDs and Blu-rays in its first weekend.
However, it wasn’t an all time record as The Twilight Saga: New Moon sold 4 million DVDs and Blu-rays in its first weekend back in 2010. And Avatar racked up sales of 5.2 million DVDs and Blu-rays in its first two days of sale, before setting a four day record of 6.7 million units.
But wait there’s more. According to Lionsgate, “The Hunger Games was also the largest digital and on demand launch in the Company’s history, generating the biggest first day sales of any title on Zune Video on Xbox, achieving more first day transactions on Comcast than any title in the past four years and generating record Lionsgate revenue on iTunes.”
“Our motion picture event of the year is translating into a home entertainment juggernaut that is already setting new digital records and demonstrating sustained playability similar to the film’s remarkable long-term box office performance,” said Lionsgate Executive Vice President and General Manager of Home Entertainment Ron Schwartz. “We are especially pleased to see more than one third of its first weekend units sold in the higher margin Blu-ray format, a remarkably high percentage.”
Unfortunately, Lionsgate didn’t release exactly what those record-setting digital and on demand sales were. Since digital is much larger than it was two years ago, it would be interesting to know if the combined DVD and digital sales for The Hunger Games would beat the combined DVD and digital sales for Avatar.
