12 Rounds Shoots to No. 1

12 Rounds

By : Thomas K. Arnold | Posted: 08 Jul 2009
tarnold@questex.com

The dog days of summer are upon us. As studios continue to hold back their big films for fourth-quarter release, consumer spending levels are going down and movies that otherwise would have been also-rans are shooting up the charts, simply because there’s no high-profile competition to contend with them.

The top-selling home video release for the week ended July 5 was 20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s 12 Rounds, an actioner that was one of the last films from the now-shuttered Fox Atomic division, launched two years ago to produce low-budget theatricals aimed at teens.

12 Rounds was No. 1 on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart and also topped Nielsen’s Blu-ray Disc chart its first week in stores, but largely by default: with just $12.2 million in theatrical earnings, the film was nevertheless the week’s top-grossing new release. The film also managed to snag the No. 1 sales spot with estimated unit sales of fewer than 150,000 discs, according to Home Media Research.

On Home Media Magazine’s video rental chart for the week, 12 Rounds debuted at No. 2, right behind Warner’s Gran Torino, which moved back into the No. 1 rental spot a month after its release. The previous week it was No. 4.

12 Rounds was followed on the sales chart by HBO’s season five TV DVD set of Entourage, which debuted No. 2 and sold nearly 87% as many copies as 12 Rounds, albeit at a much higher list price. Walt Disney Studios’ TV movie Princess Protection Program debuted at No. 3, with Gran Torino finishing at No. 4. Rounding out the top five was another Disney release, Jonas Brothers — The Concert Experience.