Brandon Gray
Boxofficemojo.com
The rentals stats for LOTR’s first week on home video are in: DVD Rentals and VHS Rentals.
People may have been so busy buying LOTR, that it didn’t break any rentals records. The epic fantasy minted $6.02 million in DVD rentals and $6.79 million in VHS rentals top both charts for the week ending August 11. By comparison, Harry Potter did $5.34 million on DVD and $7.41 million on VHS in its first week. So LOTR did top Potter in combined rentals, $12.81 million to $12.75 million.
Full rentals charts will be posted later today, including how many times LOTR was rented, not just the money.
Still no word on actual sales, but given the muted rentals numbers, they likely rivaled Harry Potter’s if not surpassed it. Potter’s first week came to 9.86 million in combined DVD and VHS sales, and it has gone on to sell nearly 7 million copies on DVD. Shrek is still the top DVD seller of all time at over 8 million.
