DVD sales in October, despite the release of Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (see “’Indy’ Tops DVD Charts”), were weaker than expected, according to Video Business.  Compared to movies with the same box office receipts a year ago, this year’s DVD releases are underperforming.

For example, Indiana Jones and Iron Man both had similar box office grosses to Transformers last year, but their DVDs were selling less than Transformers did.  Comparing the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to the same week a year ago, when Transformers was released, shows sales down 30%.  Iron Man did better, but still sold 1 million fewer units its first week than Transformers did a year ago. 

Hulk (see “Hulk on Top”) did about as expected for a film of its size, according to the report.

Home video is generally thought to be a fairly resilient category in bad economic times, but the unprecedented nature of this global financial crisis, and the early indications from October’s sales, are raising doubts that the category will be unaffected this time.