What movie is the best-selling VHS of all time?
Cinephiles of a particular generation will always have an attachment to physical media. After all, Friday night pilgrimages to the VHS rental shop were a sworn tradition for many kids growing up. Then, when technology improved, and DVDs were introduced, many of those kids became teenagers and young adults who took pride in crafting the perfect collections. There was a sense of ownership to physical media that simply can’t be replicated with streaming and digital, and therefore it will always have a nostalgic hold.
However, beyond nostalgia, VHS and DVD were once integral to the business plan of Hollywood moviemaking. These days, studios and filmmakers are so obsessed with making as much money as possible on opening weekend because they know the secondary market for VHS and DVD sales effectively no longer exists. Sure, sometimes a movie can get a lucrative streaming deal, and some boutique Blu-Ray outfits are selling well enough, but it’s nowhere near the same revenue as at the height of VHS and DVD.
Take the highest-selling VHS titles, for instance. 1996’s Independence Day sold 22 million copies, which amounted to an extra $550million to add to the $817m it made at the box office. Similarly, Jurassic Park’s 24 million copies boosted its $1.058 billion box office take by a healthy $315m. These days, no blockbuster is making that kind of money with streaming deals and digital sales.
In truth, though, the biggest winner when it came to VHS was the House of Mouse. Disney animated movies account for seven of the top ten highest-selling videotapes, with Cinderella, Pocahontas, Toy Story, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Aladdin all selling between 17 million and 30 million copies.
The bestselling VHS of all time, though, is 1994’s The Lion King, which sold a mind-boggling 32 million copies and earned $520m on top of its $978m box office bonanza.
What about DVD?
Interestingly, Disney wasn’t quite as dominant when it came to the bestselling DVDs of all time, although it still managed to nab half the spots on the list, including the top two. The first two Pirates of the Caribbean movies – The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest – sold a respective 16.6 and 16.5 million discs, raking in an enormous $634m in the process.
The Incredibles and Cars also sold huge numbers – 15.6 million and 23.1 million, respectively – while Finding Nemo swam into pole position at the top of the chart. The bestselling DVD of all time shifted an incredible 38.8 million copies, putting another $677m into Disney’s coffers.
The third and fourth biggest-selling DVDs of all time, however, weren’t Disney releases. They do predict the growing dominance of the superhero industrial complex that Hollywood would experience in the 2010s, though. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight sold 19.2 million discs, adding $283m to the billion it made in cinemas, while Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man had its $825m box office take improved by a substantial $565m through its 19.5 million DVD sales.
All in all, looking at these numbers is enough to make the average Hollywood executive weep. It’s no wonder Matt Damon once lamented, “DVD was a huge part of our business, of our revenue stream. Technology has just made that obsolete.” He even claimed the loss of physical media sales fundamentally changed the kinds of movies Hollywood chose to greenlight. “The movies that we used to make,” Damon explained, “You could afford to not make all of your money when it played in the theatre because you knew you had the DVD coming behind the release.”
