“Planes” Disney Studios animated comedy tops home vid sales charts

PanARMENIAN.Net - Walt Disney Studios’ Planes soared straight into the fourth-quarter disc-shopping frenzy the week ending Nov. 24 and immediately vaulted to the top of both national home video sales charts, The Hollywood Reporter said.

The film, a spinoff of Pixar’s Cars produced by Disney’s direct-to-video production arm, DisneyToon Studios, grossed a respectable $90 million in U.S. theaters and easily debuted at No. 1 on both the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales, DVD and Blu-ray Disc combined, as well as Nielsen’s dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart.

The animated CGI feature bumped the previous week’s top-seller, Warner Bros.' Man of Steel, to No. 4 on the First Alert chart and No. 3 on the Blu-ray Disc sales chart.

Planes shared air space with two other high-profile new releases. Warner’s We’re the Millers, a comedy about a fake family created by a veteran pot dealer, bowed at No. 2 on both charts, selling about two-thirds as many copies its first week in stores as Planes. The film stars Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis and Emma Roberts and racked up an impressive domestic gross of $150.2 million.

Universal Studios’ 2 Guns bowed at No. 3 on First Alert and No. 4 on the Blu-ray Disc chart. The comic actioner, with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg as a DEA agent and a naval intelligence officer who go on the run after unsuccessfully attempting to infiltrate a drug cartel, generated $75.6 million in U.S. ticket sales.

Also new was The World’s End, from Universal Studios, a comedy about five aging pub crawlers who seek to re-create their epic drinking odyssey from 20 years ago. The film earned $26 million in theaters and debuted at No. 7 on both sales charts.

Of the four new releases, The World’s End generated the highest percentage of total sales from Blu-ray Disc (60 percent), followed by Planes (44 percent), 2 Guns (42 percent) and We’re the Millers (36 percent).

On Home Media Magazine’s video rental chart for the week, 20th Century Fox’s The Heat retained the No. 1 spot for the second consecutive week, followed by two other titles that just came off their 28-day holdback from key rental outlets Netflix and Redbox: 20th Century Fox’s The Internship at No. 2 and Warner’s The Conjuring at No. 3.

Warner’s Pacific Rim, No. 2 the prior week, slipped to No. 4, with Sony Pictures’ White House Down dropping two spots to round out the top five.