'Joyful Noise,' 'New Year's Eve' and 'Haywire' Debut on Home Entertainment Charts

Three new theatrical releases took the three top spots on the national home video sales charts for the week ending May 6, led by Warner Home Video’s Joyful Noise, a musical comedy with Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah that grossed $30.9 million at the box office.

The No. 2 spot on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart -- which tracks total disc sales, DVD and Blu-ray Disc combined – went to another Warner-distributed title, New Year’s Eve, a romantic comedy with an ensemble cast of past and present hotties, from Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry and Alyssa Milano to Jessica Biel and Zac Efron, that earned $54.5 million in U.S. theaters.

Lionsgate’s Haywire, an actioner with an $18.9 million theatrical track record, debuted at No. 3 on First Alert but bowed at No. 1 on both Nielsen’s dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart and Home Media Magazine’s rental chart.

The victory on the Blu-ray Disc chart was due to the fact that nearly half of total unit sales were on Blu-ray, as opposed to 23 percent for Joyful Noise and just 19 percent for New Year’s Eve.

The victory at the rental counter was due to the fact that Lionsgate titles are available at all rental outlets the same day they come out, unlike Warner titles.

On the rental chart, Haywire knocked another windowless title, Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, to No. 2. Twentieth Century Fox’s We Bought a Zoo, fresh off the studio’s 28-day rental holdback, finished the week at No. 3, up from No. 42 the prior week, when it was only available at brick-and-mortar rental outlets.