'Escape Plan' Debuts Atop Disc Sales Chart

12 Feb, 2014 By: Thomas K. Arnold

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Summit Entertainment’s Escape Plan, with aging action stars Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, was the top home video seller and rental in the week ended Feb. 9.

The Lionsgate-distributed film — a box office underachiever that grossed slightly more than half its $50 million estimated budget — debuted at No. 1 on Nielsen VideoScan’s First Alert sales chart, which tracks overall DVD and Blu-ray Disc combined sales, and Home Media Magazine’s weekly rental chart.

On Nielsen’s dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart, Escape Plan couldn’t overtake Paramount’s Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa for the No. 1 spot. Bad Grandpa debuted a week earlier at No. 2 after earning $102 million in U.S. theaters. This week, Escape Plan bowed at No. 2, selling 93% as many Blu-ray units as Bad Grandpa.

That’s not surprising, given that Bad Grandpa in its second week of availability generated 51% of its total unit sales from Blu-ray, as opposed to just 36% for Escape Plan, which undoubtedly got a sales boost from a Target sale that offered the DVD version for just $10.

Sony Pictures’ Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, which debuted at No. 1 the previous week on First Alert, slipped to No. 4, behind Bad Grandpa — which held steady at No. 2 — and 20th Century Fox’s Free Birds (No. 3), an animated adventure voiced by Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson that grossed $55.6 million at the domestic box office.

Free Birds also debuted at No. 4 on Nielsen’s Blu-ray chart, even though the high-definition version accounted for just 32% of total unit sales. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 slipped to No. 3 from No. 1 on the Blu-ray chart the previous week.

While Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 and, in particular, Bad Grandpa showed good staying power, Sony Pictures’ Last Vegas did not. The film — about a quartet of geezers (Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Kevin Kline and Morgan Freeman) who hit The Strip for one last bachelor party — debuted at No. 3 on both charts the previous week, but fell to No. 11 on First Alert and out of the top 20 entirely on the Blu-ray Disc chart.

On Home Media Magazine’s rental chart for the week, Escape Plan bumped Bad Grandpa to No. 2. Last Vegas did find legs as a rental, slipping to No. 3 after bowing at No. 2 the prior week. Sony Pictures’ Captain Phillips, in its third week in stores, fell to No. 4 from No. 3, while the No. 5 spot went to Runner Runner, a thriller from 20th Century Fox that just came off its 28-day rental moratorium.

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