Comcast said The Lego Movie now holds the record as the best-selling title in its first week as a new release via the Xfinity Digital Store, the electronic sell-through service that the MSO launched late last year.
The EST version of the hit flick went on sale May 20, four weeks before its DVD release.
Comcast paired the movie’s electronic debut with a week-long Movie Kids Promo that pitched The Lego Movie at a discount while also cutting the price on dozens of other kids titles offered at the MSO’s digital store, which lets customers purchase and view movies and TV shows on the set-top box and via the Web, and play back acquired titles on tablets and smartphones via the operator’s Xfinity On Demand Purchases app.
“During the week, nearly 100 family-friendly movies were available to own at a discounted rate and helped propel the week to the most successful week ever for the Xfinity Digital Store,” Nancy Spears, Comcast’s VP of digital media distribution and monetization, noted in this blog post.
Comcast wouldn’t say how much money came in the door, but first week sales of The Lego Movie unseated Universal Pictures' Despicable Me 2, the former record-holder in the category at the Xfinity Digital Store, which went on sale back in December, and initially outpaced digital sales via Apple iTunes.
Comcast EST partners include Twentieth Century Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros.
Verizon Communications also built a special campaign around its EST distribution of The Lego Movie, offering buyers one free child’s ticket (with the purchase of one adult ticket) to either Legoland Parks (located in California and Florida) or Legoland Discovery Centers (in several cities, including Atlanta, Boston and Dallas, among them), estimating that it represents a value of up to $91. That promo runs through June 16.
