'Equalizer' Tops Home Video Charts for Second Week

14 Jan, 2015 By: Thomas K. Arnold

---

Several new theatrical features arrived on disc the week ended Jan. 11, but none could budge Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s The Equalizer from the No. 1 spot on the national home video sales and rental charts.

The crime thriller, starring Denzel Washington, earned more than $100 million in U.S. theaters and for the second consecutive week topped the Nielsen VideoScan overall and Blu-ray Disc sales charts, as well as Home Media Magazine’s rental chart.

The highest-charting new release was Entertainment One’s Left Behind, starring Nicolas Cage and Lea Thompson in a remake of the 2000 Christian thriller. The film, which grossed $14 million in theaters, bowed at No. 2 on the overall disc sales chart but could only muster a No. 6 debut on the Blu-ray Disc sales chart, given that just 18% of its total unit sales came from the high-definition format.

Next was Sony Pictures’ No Good Deed, with $52.5 million in domestic theatrical earnings. The crime thriller, about a young mother terrorized by an unstable ex-con, debuted at No. 3 on both First Alert and the Blu-ray Disc sales chart. It generated 27% of its first-week sales from Blu-ray Disc.

Walt Disney’s five-week-old Guardians of the Galaxy slipped to No. 4 from No. 2 on First Alert, while a third new release, Universal Studios’ Get On Up, bowed at No. 5 on both sales charts. The James Brown bio-drama collected $30.7 million during its summer theatrical run and generated 35% of its sales from Blu-ray Disc.

On the Blu-ray Disc chart, Guardians of the Galaxy finished the week at No. 2, while Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remake was ranked at No. 4, two notches higher than its finish on the overall disc chart.

Paramount’s Boyhood, a critically hailed film about the life of a young man filmed over a 12-year span with the same cast, debuted at No. 10 on the combined disc sales chart and No. 7 on the Blu-ray Disc sales chart. But sales will likely pick up in the wake of its Golden Globe wins (Best Picture — Drama, Best Supporting Actress and Best Director) and mounting buzz about its Best Picture prospects at next month’s Academy Awards.

On Home Media Magazine’s video rental chart for the week, No Good Deed debuted at No. 2, right behind The Equalizer, bumping 20th Century Fox’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to No. 3.

Rounding out the week’s top five rentals were 20th Century Fox’s Let’s Be Cops, repeating at No. 4, and Guardians of the Galaxy at No. 5. Boyhood debuted at No. 6.

Bookmark it: