Adam Tyner

Aside from specialty stores like Orbit DVD in Asheville, NC, I don’t even know of a physical retailer who stocks most of these titles, so the pandemic really might not be having much of an impact for these types of movies, at least in terms of availability. Obviously some people will be buying fewer titles for other reasons, but it’s not as if you could’ve gotten a Kino Lorber Studio Classics title, Warner Archive, Vinegar Syndrome, etc. at a brick-and-mortar Target, Walmart, Best Buy, and the like late last year before this whole thing started.

Alan Smithee

Adding Asheville to the list of cities that have better places to buy media than Sacramento...

WeeBey

Walmart will be closed on Thanksgiving day which in prior years was the kickoff to Black Friday sales. No information yet about what they are doing for Black Friday itself.

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/walmar...day-tradition/

Alan Smithee

Didn't buy anything at Walmart the past 2 Black Fridays anyways, and have bought enough online this summer for at least one Black Friday.

TomOpus

I've gone the day after Black Friday sale. They still have what I want and no crowds.

Josh-da-man

I wonder what the Black Friday sales for DVD/Blu-ray will look like this year.

We've had very few movies released this year, so no summer/fall home video releases this year. These are usually the titles that sold for $7.99-$9.99. Will they discount a lot of older catalog releases? Or just not put a lot of movies out? I could see it go either way.

PhantomStranger

It wasn't like Walmart was awash in media items last Black Friday. Best Buy had far more media inventory on hand for Black Friday last year.

morriscroy

I dropped by wallymart and bestbuy earlier today, during my weekly grocery shopping. I haven't been to either retailer in almost two months.

Somewhat sad sight when I noticed the dvd/bluray selection they had on the shelves, was almost identical to the last time I dropped by. (Other than the new releases rack having newer stuff). Many empty slots, where it looks like they hardly even re-stock back the out-of-stock dvds/blurays.


The last few years of blackfriday/xmas, I noticed local bestbuy outlets were mostly tons of heavily discounted Fox and Warner titles. Not as much from the other big movie companies. Now with no more Fox, I have no idea what they're going to dump into the blackfrida/xmas bins.

WeeBey

The DEG Q1 2020 report has been out since May but I just did the math and it looks like disc media is ~9% of the home video market, physical rental is ~5%, and digital (SVOD, VOD, and digital purchases) is ~86%. Considering the fact that UHD BD is typically <10% of overall disc sales, itself a tiny part of the market, I think it's no surprise that Disney isn't excited about releasing older titles on the format.


If you haven't seen the report yet, you can read it here:

https://www.degonline.org/wp-content...ent-Report.pdf

BuckNaked2k

milo bloom

All those numbers are down like the hit song from Marian Hill.
Jeez.

DJariya

Yeah no shit sales are down across the board. New releases have dried up.

Alan Smithee

And retail support in my area is at an all-time low. It's now been more than a year since we lost our last regular media store. Did a ton of mail-ordering this summer though, mainly from Twilight Time (RIP) and Vinegar Syndrome.

WeeBey

Presumably, next year we will see a lot of up weeks if big movies start coming out on disc. 2020 should prove to be an easy compare.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, those weekly numbers are plummeting because we've hit the wall with the pandemic shutdown. Theatrical releases dried up five months ago, and that drought is now hitting the home video market. And it's going to remain that way for at least several months after the theaters reopen to regular releases.

BuckNaked2k

slop101

about 3 months now... this is the longest I've gone without buying a single blu-ray/dvd, and I don't see buying one any time soon.

Coral

Holy physical media collapse, Batman.
And BD can't capture any better than 38% of the sales.

Whenever the bounce-back happens, I'm sure it won't go back to pre-covid levels. I think covid has converted even more people to streaming.

milo bloom

I've hardly put a dent in my unwatched disc backlog, but we're streaming all kinds of things all the time.
And stores are cutting space for physical media more and more.

We have been selling some DVDs on eBay to thin the collection and people are buying, so there's collectors out there, we're just becoming rarer and rarer.

orangerunner

I think these numbers also reflect the fact that movie theatres are closed. With theatres closed everything new has a de-valued, disposable, straight-to-video vibe to it. Without a theatrical release there's no sense of discerning what's a legitimate release and what truly is forgettable, straight-to-video crap.

When movies are disposable that's where streaming becomes the clear option.

DJariya

The only real options for physical media are expensive boutique titles, TV and Criterion.

Not all theatres are closed now. They have slowly started opening back up. However, the constant stream of new major releases dried up months ago. The majority of “new” movies coming out now on lower budget movies that probably the majority of you here wouldn’t even give a look at.

When and if there’s a Black Friday, you’re going to have slim pickings on 2020 movies. The majority will be from past years. Is anyone dying to get Bloodshot or The Way Back on BF? Probably not.

PhantomStranger

New movie releases drive media sales and the schedule has been dry for months. Normally this time of year we'd start seeing waves of summer movies hitting home video.

BuckNaked2k

Alan Smithee

:facepalm:

TheBang

On the bright side, next year’s year-over-year should look awesome?