The sales dominance of Frozen doesn't come as a surprise to anyone reading Music Times. From a musical perspective, there are countless viral videos on YouTube of fans recording the song's hit "Let It Go," and 1.7 million of those fans have downloaded the track, and those who didn't buy the single are probably part of the 1.4 million people who bought the album. The film itself came out on DVD and Blu-ray Tuesday, and Disney has reported crazy high numbers.
The company is looking at 3.2 million units sold on opening day alone, which means the film is well on its way to potentially having the biggest debut of any video release in more than a decade. The previous high mark comes from another Disney project, as Finding Nemo tallied up 14 million sales during its first two weeks in 2004. Can Frozen match that? Debatable, but Nemo certainly can't match Frozen's soundtrack.
Will the success of the DVD/Blu-ray steal from the album's sales? No, say analysts. Quite the opposite. Nielsen forecasters predict that the release will actually propel the film's soundtrack to a seventh week atop the Billboard 200. Not only that, but the album may have its highest-selling week yet, as its predicted to sell another 200,000 copies this week. That would be the second best-selling week for any album this year (behind Eric Church's The Outsiders debut). Frozen's best week to date has been when it sold 165,000 copies during the first week of January. Official Billboard numbers will be available Wednesday.
So what's the explanation? Big retailers such as Walmart and Target are positioning the album next to the new films, luring fans into buying both. A good business plan, if we've ever heard one. Disney is raking it in, and all we can do is hope they don't make a needless sequel.
