'Twilight' Top-Selling Disc of the Year

30 Mar, 2009 By: Thomas K. Arnold

With sales hitting 5.6 million units at the end of this weekend, Summit Home Entertainment’s Twilight is now the top-selling home entertainment release of the year, according to Home Media research.

The film narrowly surpassed the previous top seller, Paramount/DreamWorks’ Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which has sold an estimated 5.3 million units since its Feb. 6 release, according to Home Media research.

Twilight, like the Madagascar sequel, wasn’t released on the traditional Tuesday street date. Rather, the film arrived on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on Saturday, March 21 (Madagascar came out on a Friday).

The release sold 3 million units its first day in stores, Summit says, enough to send it to the top of the weekly Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart even though it was only on sale a single day.

As of the end of the day March 27, Summit Home Entertainment president Steve Nickerson reported the film had sold 5.4 million copies, with the total shooting to 5.6 million over the weekend.

Just 3% of the film’s total unit sales came from Blu-ray Disc, not surprising given that Twilight’s Blu-ray Disc edition is only being sold at Target Stores and Best Buy until May 5.