‘Silver Linings Playbook’ Debuts Atop Home Video Charts

Anchor Bay Entertainment is on a roll. The independent supplier topped the national home video sales charts for the third consecutive week, this time with Silver Linings Playbook, from The Weinstein Co., a romantic drama/comedy that grossed $131.8 million in U.S. theaters.

Silver Linings Playbook debuted at No. 1 on both the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales, and Nielsen’s dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart. Both charts track disc sales for the week ending May 5.

PHOTOS: Behind the Scenes of ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ With Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence

On both charts, the film knocked another Anchor Bay/Weinstein title, Django Unchained, out of the top spot, where it’s been perched for two weeks.

The three top-selling discs of the week are all new releases. Aside from Silver Linings Playbook, there’s 20th Century Fox’s Broken City, which bowed at No. 2, and Paramount’s The Guilt Trip, which debuted at No. 3, just ahead of Django Unchained, which slipped to No. 4.

On the Blu-ray Disc sales chart, Broken City also bowed at No. 2, while Django Unchained finished at No. 3 and Guilt Trip came in at No. 4.

Silver Linings Playbook owes nearly 40 percent of its total unit sales to Blu-ray Disc, just a tad less than Broken City, at 41%. The Guilt Trip, which appeals to more of a female audience, generated just 21% of its unit sales to Blu-ray Disc.

The theatrical opening of Iron Man 3, the much-ballyhooed superhero sequel, sent the previous installments in the franchise back into the First Alert top 20. The original Iron Man finished the week at No. 20, up from No. 56 the prior week, while Iron Man 2 popped back in at No. 14, from No. 31. In addition, the crossover film The Avengers, which prominently features the Iron Man character, rose to No. 10.

Similarly, anticipation for the upcoming theatrical release of Star Trek Into Darkness helped push 2009’s Star Trek into the top 10 Blu-ray sellers, at No. 9. Trekkers also went out to purchase two new Blu-ray editions of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” with the remastered third season of the show debuting at No. 15 and a standalone Blu-ray release of acclaimed episode “The Best of Both Worlds” at No. 18.

On Home Media Magazine’s video rental chart for the week, Silver Linings Playbook also debuted at No. 1 — giving Anchor Bay the distinction of topping all three charts for three weeks in a row.

The Guilt Trip debuted at No. 2.

Django Unchained finished the week as the No. 3 rental, down from No. 1, while the No. 4 spot on the Home Media Magazine rental chart went to Universal Studios’ This Is 40.

The buzz around Iron Man 3 extended to the rental side of things as well, pushing The Avengers back to No. 19 on the rental charts seven months after it was first released.