New Releases Buried by Holiday Rush

23 Dec, 2014 By: John Latchem

Unsurprisingly, studios avoided releasing any major new releases Dec. 23 to avoid them getting swallowed by a last-minute Christmas shopping rush. The new titles amounted to a few films that barely dented the box office and a few boxed sets of cable TV shows.

Instead, the big chains offered huge savings on catalog title and recent hits. Target had a buy-3-get-1-free deal on $5 DVDs, and had assortments of $9.50 and $14.99 discs.

Target also offered a free $5 gift card with a disc preorder of Game of Thrones: Season Four, Big Hero 6 or The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 at Target.com/pre-order.

Best Buy touted TV seasons for $14.99 or $199 each.

Walmart was apparently the only place to get a DVD copy of Warner's new release The Good Lie, with Reese Witherspoon, available elsewhere just as a Blu-ray/DVD combo.

In other sellthrough news, Paramount Home Media Distribution is lauding the first-week sales of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as the top disc debut in terms of box office to disc sales ratio among 2014 films grossing more than $100 million, although the studio hasn't released unit data or comparative numbers.

New Releases Buried by Holiday Rush

About the Author: John Latchem