Sales figures for a particular DVD

November 19, 2004 12:25 PM

I am looking for gross sales figures for a particular DVD. Any suggestions of free sources that would have this information?
posted by anathema to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

There's a cool site my friend told me about AOL Keyword: IMDB.

Annie Hall

Gross $38,300,000 (USA)

Click on "Box Office & Business" to get to it.
posted by geoff. at 12:38 PM on November 19, 2004

Oh my meanness caught up with me and bit me in the ass. You wanted just DVD.

Oops.
posted by geoff. at 12:41 PM on November 19, 2004

That's theater sales, smartass. Not DVDs.
posted by Danelope at 12:42 PM on November 19, 2004

Looks like Billboard has what you are looking for but you have to pay. Now that I've made an ass out of myself I'm making this a crusade.
posted by geoff. at 12:43 PM on November 19, 2004

Response by poster: Thanks for the snark. If you'll notice IMDB does not have the information I'm trying to find. By the way, that $38,300,000 is for theatrical gross.
posted by anathema at 12:44 PM on November 19, 2004

Response by poster: I'm aware of all the subscrtiption services. I'm just looking for a single data point so I'd rather not pay a subscription fee.
posted by anathema at 12:46 PM on November 19, 2004

Anathema,

If these numbers were freely available, Nielsen/Soundscan would not have a business model.

Unfortunately unless you know someone whose company has an account, you have to subscribe. What is the DVD, I might be able to find out for you.
posted by remlapm at 1:00 PM on November 19, 2004

Response by poster: Yeah, I know it wrecks that model, I was just taking a stab at it.
posted by anathema at 1:07 PM on November 19, 2004

Response by poster: Doesn't SoundScan only track music and music related videos?
posted by anathema at 1:11 PM on November 19, 2004

You might have some luck with the-numbers.com. Information seems to vary by title, with some gross numbers, other entries with only weekly data, the remainder with nothing at all.

But if it is a fairly popular film like Spider-Man, you'll see what appears to be the figure for all versions of any DVD of the movie. If you want to compare a full screen to a collector's edition boxed set, this probably won't be very useful.
posted by brad! at 1:13 PM on November 19, 2004

Response by poster: the-numbers did not have DVD onfo for the title I'm looking for, and their info for world-wide theatrical gross was off by over $50,000,000.
posted by anathema at 1:23 PM on November 19, 2004

I would love to know this information myself. Finding DVD sales of catalog titles is fairly impossible although newer titles can be found. Looking on Amazon, the DVD was released on 10/11/03 and looking on dvdfile.com, the DVD was never in the top 20 for sales in a single week. I know that doesn't help, but it's the best I can do.
posted by Arch Stanton at 4:13 PM on November 19, 2004

I can't help, but I can say that it's more complicated if you add rental sales and revenues from rentals in there. Then you have to go to Rentrak, who aggregates rental data. There isn't any one source that tracks rental and retail sales, although that's Rentrak's business model.
posted by SpecialK at 7:38 PM on November 19, 2004

Call the producers and ask. They will know the answer. If the answer is a good one, they will be proud to tell you.

You might also call the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Margaret Herrick Research Library and see if someone there can look it up for you.
posted by Sidhedevil at 7:43 PM on November 19, 2004

dvdexclusive.com, run by the same people who does Variety magazine, has a chart section which tracks only the top selling DVDs and their sales figures. It has charts going back only 6 months.

Not bad if you're just looking for a quick figure on a DVD you know is selling millions...
posted by icontemplate at 7:13 AM on November 20, 2004