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YEAR-END FIGURES REVEALED BY BASE, OFFICIAL CHARTS
BUSINESS UP 10 PER CENT TO ALMOST £5 BILLION
STREAMERS DRIVE MUCH OF THE GROWTH
BARBIE TOPS SALES, WITH £200 A MINUTE SPENT ON THE FILM
TOY-BASED BLOCKBUSTER EDGES OUT JOHN WICK
OPPENHEIMER TOP PHYSICLA MEDIA RELEASE…
…BLACK ADAM THE BESTSELLING DVD
BASE CHIEF: "WONDERFUL" TO SEE VOLUME AND RANGE
HMV CHIEF "SUPER HAPPY" WITH WHERE RETAILER IS AT…
PUTMAN PRAISES STAFF AND PLEDGES SUPPORT TO PHYSICAL MEDIA
BOX OFFICE TOPS A BILLION FOR FIRST TIME SINCE COVID
MONSTER MOVIES
SCALA!!! MADNESS!!!
PART OF THE BLANK GENERATION
STUDIOCANAL TAKES A PEEP
RADIANCE UNVEILS MARCH SLATE
BBC GETS ON PHYSICAL MEDIA TRAIL
TRAILERS OF THE WEEK
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It was a good week for… Business up 10 per cent in 2023…
It was a bad week for… Let's not start with bad news, it's a new year…
We’ve been watching… The Scala!!! movie (again) Ferrari, Priscilla on 35mm (thanks to Picturehouse for those two) and Blank… And a happy new year to you all. The Raygun is back, full of beans and set for a more regular run throughout 2024. We’ll start – where else – with the year-end figures as announced officially today (Monday January 8) by trade organisation BASE and put together in conjunction with the Official Charts Company. And the topline looks very positive: the UK home entertainment category – taking in everything from physical media to streaming services and the plethora of different digital options – rose by more than 10 per cent in 2023 to a staggering £4.9 billion in value. Much of the growth came from the continued rise of streaming services, with Netflix and its contemporaries enjoying a 5.4 per cent year on year increase with 56 million subscriptions over the past 12 months – a total that is now nearing one per had for the UK population. The impressive figures come off the back of more than 14 per cent growth in the previous year. Released by trade organisation BASE, they take in every different home entertainment option, including Streaming Video on Demand (SVoD), digital, disc sales, and rental, covering the array of Premium Electronic Sell Through (PEST), Electronic Sell Through (EST), Premium Video on Demand (PVoD), Video on Demand (VOD), DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD, and box sets.
The headlines make for some impressive reading, not least for Barbie, the undisputed winner at both theatrical and home entertainment. It was the biggest selling standalone title of 2023, shifting 700,000 units across EST, VOD, Blu-ray and DVD, This came on top of the £95.5 million it had already taken at the box office and represented a further tenth of that, £9.5m, across home entertainment formats, going into Warner’s coffers. The total spend on the Barbie movie in 2023 equated to £200 spent every minute in 2023. The second biggest title of the year with almost 700,000 units sold, as well as rental title of the year, was John Wick 4, with 306,000 sales on VOD with disc and EST sales of 388,000. It has now earned more than £21 million as a franchise on home entertainment formats (excluding VOD). Avatar Way Of The Water topped combined disc and EST sales with 560,000 units. And, for Universal, Oppenheimer was the not entirely unsurprising disc bestseller of 2023, earning universal a cool £1.1 million on Blu-ray and £673,000 on DVD. The top five bestsellers across all formats was rounded off by Matilda The Musical. Other notable successes included a surprising bestseller on DVD in the shape of Black Adam. It belied the “who still buys DVDs?” myth by shifting some 80,000 units. Bestselling premium release was Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, which took almost £500,000 in its first week after its 12.2 million at cinemas. Super Mario Bros was the biggest kids’ title, while Game Of Thrones: House Of Dragons was the biggest TV title for the second year running. Its sales topped the 63,000 mark, while the success of titles from streaming showed the public’s continued desire to own physical copies of programmes they love. In other genres and awards, the sport and fitness chart was dominated by wrestling, with WWE releases via Fremantle making up all five of the top sellers. Moonage Daydream was the biggest selling music title, followed by Get Back and, well worth congratulating, the BFI for Dance Craze, one of our favourite releases of 2023. Special interest was topped by Kevin Bridges’ stand-up release; the top five catalogue releases were Elvis, Top Gun Maverick, Jurassic World Dominion, the aforementioned House Of Dragons and Fantastic Beasts Secrets Of Dumbledore. The top five boxsets (priced at £30 or above), were topped by two Doctor Who titles, season nine and 20 collections at one and two respectively, with two further BBC titles, Only Fools and Horses and Happy Valley, on either side of Game Of Thrones.
Some more interesting facts and figures came in the shape of the fact that, as reported by BASE: “The final week of 2023 saw EST sales transactions of 906k up 44 per cent YoY, in spite of the growth in SVoD’s per household YoY to 2.7 services in the UK.” The organisation further noted that equated to a value of almost £6 million, up more than a third YoY. Five of the last week’s top 10 were Christmas titles, headed by Love Actually. Another noteworthy figure came in the shape of 70 million, representing the total number of transactions on Visual Home Entertainment in the UK in 2023. In terms of premium VOD, another interest fact stated: “Fifty-four titles were released on Premium Video on Demand (PVOD) and/or Premium EST, one more than 2022, as audiences grow accustomed to the new shape of release windows.”
Comment came from BASE chief executive Liz Bales who 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. Audiences can control when and where they watch the films, TV shows and special interest programming they love, in a completely complimentary way to the SVoD services they invest in, which is shown in those fantastic final week figures of 2023: Home Entertainment titles were bought, downloaded and rented nearly one million times across digital and physical in that week alone, in addition to the multiple SVoD and linear TV options. When we look back at 2023, and the resurgence of HMV in particular, which opened 24 new stores in the UK, and with 38 stores in total, we can see that servicing the fans, and the appetite for physical releases on the UK high street, as well as an incredibly healthy EST and rental market, is incredibly important.”
The Raygun’s Tim Murray has penned a bit on the year-end figures for the excellent Film Stories site here, talking of which, he’s also just interviewed hmv owner Doug Putman about the retailer and the other strands of his business empire for Toys n Playthings magazine and spoke about hub and other elements. He said: “hmv has done really well. Business continues to grow, we’ll have growth [in 2022]. CD grew which is shocking, vinyl grew, which is not shocking, our pop culture business is obviously growing which is good to see. I think they’ve done an awesome job open some new stores which is also great, obviously the big one on Oxford Street, but other ones as well which is really good. I’m super happy with where hmv is at. Look the first year I bought it that December we saw a lot of erosion on sales which we could have expected because of the bankruptcy. If I looked at my hmv-owning career, that was prob my low point. I had to question myself the most: ‘can I do this, can we do this. is this possible?’ Everyone goes through those phases. Since then, we’ve had Covid, that actually allowed us time to reflect on what the business should be and how we should change it and in some ways that helped. Now they’ve rebounded and done really well."
hmv owner Putman also paid tribute to the staff and pledged to support DVD and Blu-ray too. “I love owning hmv. I love the business, I love the people, I love our head office. Everything about the business I love. I love being in the UK – not just because this is a UK interview. Everything about the UK I love. I’, a different leader than those guys have seen. What’s amazing is they’ve stuck it out with me. I’m not easy. You don’t get results being easy. Anyone who has ever had a child or a four year old knows that just being easy doesn’t get results. They’ve had so many iterations of bosses, I’m so pleased they’ve stuck with me. There were some really ugly times. They stuck through it. They could find a job that pays similar with more job security – that’s a testament to how people feel about hmv, how loyal they are.” Speaking just before Christmas he continued: “The new store openings are good. It’s 10 days to Christmas, obviously it will be a tougher December for everyone. We’ll see what the next 10 days bring. There’s no doubt we think 2024 will see a bit of economic headwind, we’ve got to be aware of that but the team is ready for it. [DVD and Blu-ray] is tough. There’s no doubt it’s tough, we’re eeing declines in it. But hmv is not going to be pulling out of it any time soon. We’ve been with CD forever, been with Blu-ray and DVD forever, it’s going to be a core part of our business. It’s going through its challenges, ultimately these are good businesses for us, our customers want them so we’ll keep supporting them and carrying them.”
The BASE figures will be joined this week by those from ERA, with more to come. We’ll have a further newsletter within a week listing these and more. It’s also worth noting some box office business too: the year’s haul at cinemas in the UK and Ireland went back over the billion mark, with a grand total of £1.062 billion, the highest since 2019 in the first year where there were no Covid restrictions since the pandemic struck The figure was up eight per cent on 2022’s £981 million. More than 1,000 titles were released at cinemas in 2023, with Barbie the biggest winner and Warner the largest distributor in revenue terms. Universal was second and Disney third, representing the first time three studios have exceeded the £200 million mark since 2017. Phil Clapp, Chief Executive of the UK Cinema Association said: “Given the range of challenges UK exhibitors faced during the year, not least in terms of significantly increased operating costs, these positive box office figures for 2023 are welcome, representing a further step on the road to recovery.” Andy Leyshon, Chief Executive at the Film Distributors’ Association added: “To cross the £1 billion box office threshold again was a major landmark for our industry, and with an exciting line-up of releases set for the next few years, hopefully we can continue the good momentum.”
Talking of box office, plaudits must go to Indies Anime Ltd and Elysian, both of whom have scored big hits in recent weeks with Japanese fare – the former turning Godzilla Minus One, the latest iteration from the creature’s native country, into a genuine monster movie. The latter has turned The Boy And The Heron, the latest from Hayao Miyazaki, into the famed creator and Studi Ghibli founder’s most successful UK outing. More on these in the coming weeks, but congratulations are due…
To the Scala in Kings Cross, on January 3 for a special screening of the film charting the life and times of the legendary repertory cinema that helped provide the launchpad for Palace Pictures and Palace Video in the 1980s and so much more besides, Scala!!! The film follows the fortunes of the craziest of cinemas and a favourite haunt of ours throughout the 80s until its untimely demise in 1992. Now a club and convert venue, the screening and party came ahead of the Friday January 5 theatrical release of the film from the BFI. It’s playing at more than 40 screens and directors Janes Giles (a former Scala staffer who subsequently worked at the BFI overseeing its home entertainment arm) and Ali Catterall will be supporting with extensive Q&As and talks around the country in the coming days and weeks. The film has already deservedly scored some great publicity and stacks of glowing reviews and it really is a wonderful celebratory film about a bygone era. It is being released on Blu-ray by the BFI on January 22 and also going on to its BFI Player streaming service and is likely to have a long and rewarding shelf life. Commenting on the film, Jane and Ali said: “We’re thrilled that our X-rated love letter to the Scala cinema is finding audiences up and down the UK, chiming both with the weirdos who went there and future misfits. Thanks to our crowdfunders and to the Doc Society for funding us, and particularly to BFI distribution for their faith in the film.” Also worth noting – and we’re aiming to pop along – is a season of films celebrating the rep cinema at the BFI Southbank – you can see more detail here
Meanwhile, out today on digital formats and well reviewed too is the latest from our old pal Ian Dawson and his Sparky Pictures outfit, which has released British AI thriller Blank alongside a host of positive reviews. It’s a smart, intelligent tale that shows ambition way beyond its relatively low budget and is a cut above your average Brit tale. As the Guardian rightly noted: “ Commenting on the release, former hmv and Icon stalwart Dawson said: ““ ‘Blank' is a timely feature from UK director Natalie Kennedy - an 'AI gone rogue' thriller with two superb lead performances from Rachel Shelley and Heida Reed. The film is available from Monday on all good UK digital platforms."
Looking ahead to the end of January, and Studiocanal is opening its vaults for another biggie, as classic Powell and Pressburger and early slasher flick Peeping Tom gets a welcome release in a spruced up, extras laden form. Comment came from Studiocanal’s Alison Arber who said: “We are thrilled to be releasing a brand-new restoration of Michael Powell’s thrilling 1960s masterpiece Peeping Tom. Championed by Martin Scorsese since the 1970s Peeping Tom has been painstakingly restored by The Film Foundation, in collaboration with Powell’s widow Thelma Schoonmaker. After its premiere at the London Film Festival last year, fans have been eagerly awaiting the release, and from Monday they will be able to own the film on 4K UHD special edition. with a host of brand-new extra content plus a booklet with new essays and an introduction from Martin Scorsese – this release is not to be missed!”
Some pre-Christmas news and just before the break Radiance Films unveiled its March titles, with the releases including Blu-ray premieres for Tomisaburo Wakayama’s `thee Bounty Hunter Trilogy, made before Lone Wolf and Cub and landing somewhere between James Bond and spaghetti Westerns; a Blu-ray first for Alain Delon as hitman Tony Arzenta in a thriller of the same name; Ye Lou’s Vertigo-inspired neo noir Suzhou River and another first for Kiju Yoshida's A Story Written With Water. Radiance Films' Fran Simeoni said: "We're overjoyed with the incredible response to our announcements. As predicted our box set is leading the pack but we're humbled to see the enthusiasm for our other offerings. Three masterpieces of their respective countries and eras, we are privileged to present them on Blu-ray for the first time.”
Back to year-end and good to see the BBC getting on the physical media bandwagon with this piece including comments from the likes of BASE and detailing the benefits of owning actual discs. "Home entertainment is resurgent globally, and the factors of influence can change each year, through new tech, pandemics, pipeline and slate," BASE’s Louise Kean-Wood told BBC Culture. "But the future of physical is important to fandom, especially for 4K and Blu-ray – collectors and film and TV fans love the ownership and event of physical." hmv’s John Delaney added; "With Oppenheimer, over 60% of our sales came from the 4K and Blu-ray versions, with most customers wanting the more cinematic experience those formats provide at home.” This follows a major feature on the state of physical media penned by the Raygun’s very own Tim Murray on Film Stories magazine. You can pick up a copy here.
TRAILERS OF THE WEEK
Word of mouth should spread…
Technically not the first Omen, but still…
Due from Dogwoof https://youtu.be/QHUkvgzNXdw?si=a4NZd9tnAuIpAJAh
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