‘Wall*E’ Leads DVD Sales
Heading into the holiday season, home video companies are hoping for a surge in shopping as sales for standard and Blu-ray discs combined to drop with a 9% increase in the third quarter compared with #Q 2007. There remain rays of hope with Wall*E topping the charts for the week ending November 23. In second place in sales, but first in rentals, is Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder.
As one would expect during a holiday period, kids fare did very well with Kung Fu Panda taking first the week prior with 117,954 units sold according to Billboard. What was a surprise, though, was the sales and rental strength of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. This bodes well for encouraging Universal to add the third film in the series to Guillermo del Toro’s crowded schedule.
A disappointment, according to The Numbers, has been Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has disappointed with 4.8 million in sales. Iron Man continues to top the charts but last year, nine other titles had stronger sales. Wall*E is likely to supplant Alvin and the Chipmunks for top animated film of the year.
Blu-ray sales are an encouraging sign as more people are finally ready to buy upgraded players now that the format war ended in Blu-ray’s favor. Studios have been rushing out current and classic films in the more expensive format in the hopes of improving their bottom lines. Overall, estimates show that to date more than 14 million Blu-rays discs have been sold this year with is an increase of 233% from 2007. Industry goals were to sell 40 million units and reach $1 billion in sales but that was before the economy tanked and people slowed discretionary spending.
An increasing trend has been for initial releases to come with a digital copy on disc that can be downloaded to computers and iPods, encouraging the mobilization of home video and in turn, increased sales through multiple channels (download, standard or Blu-ray, on demand).
Sitting in the darkened screening room at Paramount Pictures that early May day in 1981, I had no idea what I was about to experience. Working at Starlog at the time, I thought we were pretty much aware of everything cool that was coming from Hollywood. But we knew little about this thing called [[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]]. Then we watched it.
With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull about to his stores on Tuesday, Paramount Home Video has alerted us to the five variant editions that will be available at various retailers.
After the critical drubbing George Lucas has received as a writer and storyteller, the news that he’s conceiving the plot for a fifth Indiana Jones movie must be met with skepticism. Still, Harrison Ford told 
With all of the recent chatter about 
ICv2 reports that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be released on DVD the second week of October. Much like Iron Man, which hits shelves on September 30, the quick turnaround time on the Indiana Jones DVD is part of an effort to generate long-term sales in a crowded DVD market this fall. The fourth Indiana Jones film was the highest-grossing film in the franchise, earning $770 million worldwide. 
’ $461,000,000 and become the second highest grossing film in American box office history. 
On the heels of the latest trailer, a new Watchmen production journal was released with an inside look at Nite Owl II’s ship. You can check out the video here, but don’t ask me why nobody ever refers to it as "Archie."
If you wanted that original T.I.E. fighter miniature from Star Wars, you missed your chance. You could have outbid the person who spent $402,500, and it would have been yours. At an auction in Calabasas, CA, on July 31 and August 1 from 
Book of the Week: 
