Docudramas Dominate Slow Week at Retail

16 Feb, 2016 By: John Latchem

The new home video releases for Feb. 16 were dominated by a slate of docudramas and a couple of high-profile HBO comedy series, once again ceding a majority of the new-release section shelf space to Fox's Spectre. New titles include Universal's Steve Jobs, about the Apple Computer co-founder, and Trumbo, about the blackblisted Hollywood writer, and Warner's Black Mass, about mobster Whitey Bulger, and The 33, about the Chilean mining disaster.

Interestingly, Best Buy, Target and Walmart all relegated Universal's Trumbo Blu-ray to an online-only title, stocking only the DVD version on shelves.

And a Walmart in Tustin, Calif., didn't even carry the new HBO releases in stores: Girls: The Complete Fourth Season and Togetherness: The Complete First Season.

For the most part, stores touted sales of catalog titles. Best Buy offered DVDs for $3.99 each and Blu-rays for $6.99 each, with many Fox titles including coupons for discounts off movie tickets to the new hit film Deadpool. Best Buy also had TV seasons as low as $14.99 each.

There were several reports that Best Buy would start offering new Ultra HD Blu-rays from Fox on Feb. 14, but the store in Costa Mesa, Calif., didn't have any copies on display (though the chain's website does indicate a few titles available for pickup). The bulk of the first wave of UHD Blu-rays from Fox, Lionsgate and others are due March 1.

Docudramas Dominate Slow Week at Retail

About the Author: John Latchem