It’s enough to make Darth Vader crack a smile.
The long-awaited video release of “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” blew away “The Sixth Sense” this week – rolling up two-day sales figures that doubled what the Oscar-nominated horror flick did its first week.
“The big story is that ‘Star Wars’ has sold more in its first two days – $100 million – than the movie made at the box office, where it took five days to generate the same amount,” says Scott Hettrick, editor-in-chief of the trade magazine Video Business and home-entertainment editor of Daily Variety.
The blockbuster “Star Wars” prequel hit stores last Tuesday, hard on the heels of the video release of “The Sixth Sense.”
That flick, starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment as a boy who sees dead people, scared up $50 million in rentals and sales in the first week after its March 28 release, spooking retailers who could scarcely keep it in stock.
Then again, contends Hettrick, comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges.
Most of the sales of “The Sixth Sense,” which costs about $100, have been to video stores, he says. “Phantom Menace” has been priced lower – at $24.98 for the standard VHS version and $39.98 for the collectors’ edition, which includes behind-the-scenes footage, outtakes and a 48-page book – to appeal to tape buyers and collectors.
What makes the sales of “Phantom” all the more amazing is that it isn’t available yet on DVD. And “Star Wars” also made less than expected at the box office and did not blow the critics away.
“Regardless of the critical consensus, ‘The Phantom Menace’ is a phenomenon franchise,” says Hettrick. “Fans of ‘Star Wars’ just want to own every edition of ‘Star Wars’ that there is, so they’ll buy this movie just to add to their collection.”