• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, September 26, 2011

Have a hankering for some really high-value entertainment? Beggars can't be choosy.

Then Fox Home Entertainment came out with "Star Wars: The Complete Saga" in its Blu-Ray discs -- and grabbed some $84 million dollars in a week. All good for a mid-September sale period -- right after a bunch of summer theatrical action movies, and right smack in the middle of the start of the TV season.

While that was nice haul, and a record "as a catalog" title, with 1 million Blu-Ray discs sold, "Avatar" -- the biggest movie of all time -- did much better near its initial theatrical release, with 2.7 million Blu-Rays and 4 million DVDs sold for a total of $130 million.

Overall, however, things aren't that good for all home entertainment -- especially when future digital entertainment consumers are still mulling the new Netflix , and perhaps the new streaming/DVD mail order service from Blockbuster by way of Dish Network. Not great, not bad -- something in between.

All to say entertainment consumers can be pretty selective when it comes to all price levels of entertainment -- $10 a month streaming services and $80 special Blu-ray movie sets. (Mind you, theatrical marketing executives are still proclaiming another fantastically strong summer movie business.)

Then again, Netflix did lose a few hundred thousand customers in the third quarter. No longer a steal at $10/month, it is now a whopping $16/month. Six more bucks? That's two less ice venti americanos! Cord-cutters here? Maybe.

Surely those cable/satellite/telco subscribers paying $70 to $100 and more should do some better math. Adding in more Netflix actually means a total entertainment monthly rise of perhaps 6% to 9%. Not bad. You should see my annual increases for my monthly medical premiums.

It comes down to priorities. I can't live without HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" or my financial services/information iPad apps. Movies from a generation ago? Hmm... maybe I'll wait for the cheaper 50th anniversary deal.