By
Jan Saxton

Toy Story 3 is guaranteed to do huge business for Disney's home video division, and will likely continue to post strong sales right on through Black Friday and into December, even without a 3D home option. So it is not surprising to see it leading the November slate. What is somewhat surprising is the relative lack of other high-powered tentpoles on the list for the coming month. During the peak years of DVD sales, the major studios did a lot of careful jockeying for position with their big fourth-quarter releases to try and find a clear window with the best sales opportunity when another big hit wouldn't dilute their film's opening week sales.
But the market has changed and studios' strategies are changing with it. Screen Digest analysis of Nielsen VideoScan data suggests that in the second half of 2009 titles doing over $100m at the box office made an average of 44% of their first six month's physical video sales in their first week on retail shelves, with 59% in by week two. By week number four, in the third quarter 2009 65% of the first six month's sales were in vs. nearly 75% in the fourth quarter of that year. Compare with the first quarter of 2010, when 49% of the first six month's sales happened in week one, 68% of sales were done by week two, and a full 80% were in after just four weeks in the market. Clearly, US consumers have matured in their movie purchasing habits; they generally know which movies they want to add to their collection and make a point of buying them when they become available. With that telescoping of demand in mind, the studios are now looking to position their hottest releases in the thick of the holiday shopping season, which means we'll have to wait until December for the rest of the $200m-plus box office behemoths.

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