Twilight reclaims position as top VOD rental
DIGITAL: Gran Torino temporarily was No. 1 earlier this month
By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 10/28/2009
OCT. 28 | DIGITAL: Summit Home Entertainment’s Twilight is once again the top-renting movie of the year on video-on-demand after temporarily ceding its position to Clint Eastwood.
Summit re-released Twilight on VOD to capitalize on upcoming theatrical sequel New Moon.
Eastwood’s Gran Torino bested Twilight earlier this month to become the year’s top-renting VOD movie through the week ending Oct. 11, according to Warner Home Video and Rentrak.
But Twilight, re-released on VOD in October to capitalize on the Halloween timeframe and the upcoming release of sequel New Moon in theaters, has since overtaken Gran Torino to reclaim its title, Rentrak said Wednesday.
Summit hasn’t disclosed VOD rental numbers for Twilight, but the film was the top VOD rental for the first six months of the year, and the studio said earlier this month that it had done more than 14 million transactions on all rental formats.
Worldwide, Gran Torino has generated $30 million in consumer VOD spending across cable and satellite providers through roughly 6 million transactions, Warner said. That doesn’t include rentals through iTunes, Amazon Video On Demand, Xbox 360 or other digital platforms.