Barbie has been crowned as the queen of 2023 home entertainment titles in the UK, according to figures released by the British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE) and Official Charts Company (OCC).
Barbie achieved 700,000 sales across Blu-ray, DVD, digital electronic sell through (EST) and video-on-demand (VOD).
The value of the UK Home Entertainment Category rose to £4.9bn in 2023, up 10.6% year on year, following a 14.3% rise in 2022. The rise was driven by the ongoing surge in consumer uptake of subscription services, with over 56 million subscriptions in 2023, a 5.4% year on year rise.
Barbie was the UK’s biggest visual entertainment title across theatrical and home entertainment, with a performance of £95.5m at the UK box office, as well as a value of over £9.5m across transactional home entertainment in 2023, through premium EST (PEST) and premium VOD (PVoD) releases in September 2023, and physical release in October 2023. This amounted to a collective consumer spend of just over £200 per minute on Greta Gerwig’s film across the year.
John Wick: Chapter 4 topped the 2023 rental charts, with 306,000 sales on VoD, to add to its 388,000 sales across Disc and EST.
Avatar: The Way Of Water was the highest performing EST and Disc title, with digital and physical ownership transactions at 560,000 units across the year, following a £52m performance at the UK box office, before its transactional and Disney+ premier in June 2023.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was the biggest title across both disc formats in the UK in 2023, with a value of £1.1m on Blu-ray and £673,000 on DVD.
Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical was the fifth highest selling title of 2023, following its successful cinema release over Christmas 2022.
Liz Bales, Chief Executive, BASE, said: “It’s genuinely wonderful to see the volume of units purchased and the range of titles in 2023’s top five UK buy, rent and own Home Entertainment chart, as it perfectly demonstrates the convenience and breadth of this part of the Home Entertainment offering, and how much consumers value that.”
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