Fueled by record Thanksgiving week spending, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's "Live Free or Die Hard" shot to the top of the national sales and rental charts for the week ending November 25, overpowering two new theatrical releases that came to DVD two days before the holiday.

New Line's "Hairspray" -- with $118.8 million in boxoffice revenue, compared with $134.5 million for "Die Hard" -- finished second on Home Media Magazine's video rental chart with $9.6 million in revenue, behind $12.4 million for the Fox actioner.

But "Hairspray" was outsold by Paramount/DreamWorks' "Shrek the Third," which took the No. 2 spot on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart in its second week. "Hairspray" debuted at No. 3 on the sales chart, just ahead of Disney's "Ratatouille," which in its third week was No. 4 on the sellers list.

The other new-to-DVD theatrical release, Disney's "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause," debuted at No. 5 on the DVD sales chart and No. 9 on the rental chart with $4.7 million. The third installment in the Tim Allen comedy franchise is a theatrical hit from the 2006 holiday season that grossed $84.5 million on the big screen.

Black Friday deep discounting, which saw recent theatrical titles go for less than $6 at Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and other big national discount chains, spurred sales of catalog titles. Catapulting back into the First Alert top 10 after a long absence were Warner's "Blood Diamond" (No. 8) and "Happy Feet" (No. 9) and New Line's "The Notebook" (No. 10).

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

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