When we brought the news last week about Blu-ray player sales being down 40%, we thought, well, disc sales might still be up. People are still buying more PlayStation 3’s, which don’t count as a Blu-ray player sale. But when we see numbers like these, an over 7% drop in Blu-ray disc sales, you have to question what’s going on.

As far as I know, the week before wasn’t anything special. No reason for the sales being higher that week. So at this point, with HD-DVD out of the race, your numbers shouldn’t be going down. They should be up.

I still stand by my point, Blu-ray has a long way to go. The benefit is too low for the average consumer to pay a premium for it. I think the only way for Blu-ray to take over, is waiting for the prices to drop to DVD level. At that point it would be like choosing between an old and a new model with the same price. If you are smart enough, you will take the new model.

It will be interesting to see how it develops. If it will take off. Because video-on-demand is also ready to become the number one movie provider.

The focus is shifting. Export is becoming more and more important for the entertainment industry. And while the US might be still ahead, more and more countries are developing wealthy consumers who are ready to take over.

We saw it already with movies like ‘10,000 B.C.’ and ‘The Kingdom of Heaven.’ The last made just $47 million domestically, a flop compared to its $130 million budget. But if you take into account the $164 million it made overseas, it didn’t do that bad after all.

We see the same for 2007, looking at the totals for rental dollars from movie theaters, TV fees and VHS/DVD receipts. The US ended with a negative balance of -8%, not able to grow in any way. The international markets however, were up 9%, making up for the loss in the US.

Home video sales in the US took an even worse beating, down 17% from 2006. This, while international sales were up 5%.

If this trend continues, Hollywood has to let go of the US as its main market. Simultaneous releases into their main worldwide territories would have to become a priority. Not just for some movies, like it is now, but for all movies. We already saw how Sony locked up Jeff Blake, who’s responsible for global distribution at Sony. And I wouldn’t expect it to end there. Hollywood is getting ready to become Hollyworld.

I guess Robert Downey Jr. can start training again this Monday, because ‘Iron Man 2′ is pretty much confirmed by now. (for all the latest numbers see Iron Man box office facts and rumors)

‘Iron Man,’ which opened in about 60 territories this week, is expected to make over $100 million this weekend in the US alone. That’s just a couple of million short of the highest non-sequel opening by ‘Spider-man’ in 2002, which made $115 million. Yes Sony, you can be proud too, everybody is happy this weekend. Not even a little game called GTA IV could stop the iron man from exceeding every expectation.

Holding the world in a tight grip, ‘Iron Man’ is expected to exceed the $200 million bar worldwide, which makes it profitable in its first weekend if you don’t consider marketing costs. Not only a remarkable accomplishment for a relatively unknown comic book character, but also for Marvel. It’s their first independently produced picture and they didn’t shy away from taking some bold steps with this one. No studio in their right mind would have taken Robert Downey Jr. for the leading role. And I’m sure the Marvel Entertainment stock will make a little jump ahead of the official weekend numbers this Monday.

Again, you can go here for the Iron Man box office totals.