For the week that ended on November 11th, Paramount Home Media Distribution's Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One topped both the Blu-ray-only and overall packaged media charts in its debut. The seventh installment of the action franchise finds superspy Ethan Hunt up against a malevolent artificial intelligence, and was so big that it needed to be split into two parts, with the second part recently delayed from 2024 to 2025 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Filming on Dead Reckoning Part One began in February 2020 and was then shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, which delayed filming more than once and pushed it into 2021 and 2022. When the film was finally completed, the budget had reportedly inflated to over $291 million, giving Dead Reckoning Part One an enormous hurdle to clear at the box office. Sadly, while the film opened in July to positive reviews and even with star Tom Cruise championing the cinema experience in general, Dead Reckoning Part One simply couldn't overtake fellow blockbusters Barbie and Oppenheimer, both of which were released just a week later. Having said that, Dead Reckoning Part One did do decent business, making over $54 million on its opening weekend en route to over $174 million domestically and an even better global haul of over $567 million. Neither, it seems, has the series faltered on home video, as this week, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One had an HD share of 61% and 20% of units sold from the 4K UHD format.
Debuting in second place on both charts is Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's Gran Turismo. Based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough, a British player of the titular video game series who won Sony's GT Academy competition and raced for Nissan, Gran Turismo opened in August 2023 to mixed reviews. Domestically, it topped the box office on its opening weekend with over $17 million, but would go on to make the lion's share of its money internationally, eventually grossing over $121 million. This week, Gran Turismo sold 82% as many Blu-ray units as Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, with an HD share of 71% and 37% of units sold from the 4K UHD format.
And returning to third place on the Blu-ray-only chart is Paramount Home Media Distribution's Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. The latest film in the iconic robot franchise is a sequel to 2018's well-received Bumblebee and is set in 1994, where the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, must team up with the Maximals (who originally debuted in the Beast Wars: Transformers (1996-1999) TV series) to prevent the Terrorcons from bringing the planet-eater Unicron to Earth. Released in June 2023, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts received mixed reviews and has grossed less than $439 million worldwide on a reported budget of about $200 million, becoming the lowest-grossing film in the Transformers franchise so far. This week, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts sold 54% as many Blu-ray units as Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, with an HD share of 65% and 42% of units sold from the 4K UHD format.
Elsewhere on the charts, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment's American Graffiti, Paramount's Scrooged and Shout Factory's Fargo (1996), all three of which saw 4K UHD releases this week, came in at Nos. 14, 16 and 17, respectively, on the Blu-ray-only chart.
1. Holy catalog titles on this list! I hope Hollywood gets it, that if they put these out there we’ll buy them. To any bean-counters who reject the “if you build it, they will come” philosophy, just look here.
2. This is the only week ever where catalog titles could dominate home video sales (especially 4K sales) and it’s still not the biggest catalog announcement of the week.