'Django Unchained' Debuts at No. 1 on Blu-Ray, DVD Charts

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The major studios’ grip on the national home video charts was broken the week ending April 21 when Anchor Bay Entertainment topped all three charts with its disc release of Quentin Tarantino’s controversial Django Unchained, an Oscar-winning Weinstein Co. production about a freed slave who sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

The film, which grossed $162.8 million at the domestic box office, debuted at No. 1 on both the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales, as well as Nielsen’s dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart.

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Django Unchained also bowed at No. 1 on Home Media Magazine’s rental chart.

On the sales front, the violent drama – the first high-profile new release to hit stores in two weeks – bumped Warner’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to the No. 2 spot. Hobbit has been in stores for five weeks.

Only two other new releases popped up on the First Alert top 20: Lionsgate’s horror follow-up The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia at No. 13 (No. 14 on the Blu-ray Disc chart) and Shout! Factory’s Monster in Paris, a 3D-animated French film, at No. 20.

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On Home Media Magazine’s rental chart, the Universal Studios comedy This is 40 shot up to No. 2 now that its holdback from select rental outlets is over, while 20th Century Fox’s Life of Pi slipped to No. 3 from No. 1.

Rounding out the top five are two other titles that have ended their holdbacks from Netflix and Redbox: The Hobbit at No. 4 and Universal Studios’ Les Miserables at No. 5.