‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’ tops rental charts

LOS ANGELES: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's "Resident Evil: Afterlife" secured the top spot on the VideoScan First Alert sales chart for the week ended January 2.

The fourth live-action film based on the "Resident Evil" video game franchise managed to hold off a post-Christmas surge from Warner Home Video's "Inception," which finished at No. 2 with 97.2% as many copies sold as "Afterlife."

The titles also took the top two spots on the Blu-ray sales chart for the week, but with "Inception" edging out "Afterlife" for its second consecutive week on top. "Inception" generated 46% of its sales in the high-def format, compared with 44% for "Afterlife."

"Afterlife" debuted only at No. 3 on Home Media Magazine's rental chart for the week, although Sony Pictures did take the top four rental spots.

The top two titles carried over from the previous week, with "Salt" at No. 1 and "Easy A" at No. 2. The No. 4 rental was Sony Pictures' "The Other Guys."

Sony Pictures' year-end dominance of the rental chart is due to it being one of the only studios with new releases that aren't delayed by 28 days to Redbox.

Universal's "Despicable Me," which was the top-selling title the previous two weeks, slipped to No. 3 on the First Alert chart its third week in stores. Fox's "The A-Team" landed at No. 4, and Warner's "The Town" came in at No. 5. Top rental "Salt" poured onto the sales chart at No. 6 in its second week.

The only other new release to land on the Top 20 was Universal's "The American," which debuted at No. 15.