Reports are in, and the Warner Brothers Blu-ray release of 'The Dark Knight' sold approximately 600,000 copies in the US, Canada, and UK on Tuesday, which works out to 20% of all home media sales for the title. This single day accomplishment blows away the previous record holder 'Iron Man' which sold approximately 250,000 on its first day of release.
Kevin Tsujihara, President of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment, commented, "Numbers like these in this economic environment firmly establish Blu-ray as where consumers are headed."
Sales are already beating internal projections, and are expected to eclipse the 1 Million sold mark by Saturday.
Did you purchase 'The Dark Knight' on Tuesday? If so, don't forget to add it to your Blu-ray.com Collection List!
No suprises here. In the middle of watching it and it gets better with each viewing. One of the best movies ever made. Simple as that. And the IMAX effect on BLU takes this disc to the next level.
I'm not surprised, I knew it was going to be a HUGE release. I actually expected bigger numbers, like a million first day world wide. I guess all in all 600K really is pretty good. We still have a long way to go before Blu-ray replaces DVD though.
Hold on, now! When the article says "600,000 copies" do they mean DVD & Blu-Ray or just Blu-Ray? Everyone here seems to think they mean Blu-Ray, but it doesn't really say that. The quote from the Warner President implies it did well especially on Blu-Ray.
edit: Reading other sources it's clear that 600,000 Blu-Rays were sold. Awesome!
I would be surprised if they don't reach 30% total BD saturation of total DK media sales by Christmas. There are excellent generic non-studio specific Bluray commercials everywhere, daytime and primetime...network or cable...you have to be living in a cave or an under developed country to not know about Bluray by now.
yeah i pre ordered the Dark Knight at Columbia House i wonder how long its going to take to get to my house, tropic thunder took an extra week but i got the X-files by the saturday of its release. Its good to know people are more towards Quality as compared to price, and with these numbers it just means that demand goes UP and prices go DOWN. WOO HOO FOR BLU!
There always seems to be 1 in a group that hates a movie. I understand a movie may not be everyone's cup of tea, but Tenth please explain how Two-Face looked like 70's effects? I saw you collection and 10.5 Apcoalpse, Alexander, and 10,000 BC all those movies had garbage effects and bad stories. I think the rating for The Dark knight maybe inflated, but the movie was solid Crime Drama that raised the bar for a comic book movie.
In response to "yourstupidgame", I found this blip on the internet. It looks like 600,000 copies of the Blu Ray actually sold. See the info I found below:
"The studios have been hoping that the new Blu-ray high-definition format will help to spur the sluggish DVD market. As many as 25% to 30% of the "Dark Knight" discs sold -- or 600,000 copies -- were purchased in the Blu-ray format. That surpasses the previous record set by "Iron Man," which sold 260,000 Blu-ray discs upon its first day of release."
"'The Dark Knight' DVD is selling at brisk pace
Nearly 3 million copies of Warner Bros.' summer blockbuster are purchased on the first day of its home video release in the U.S., Canada and Britain."
By Dawn C. Chmielewski
This was on the dreadcentral.com website. 3 Million copies (DVD and BluRay) on the first day, that's insane!
how could u expect anything less and it does'nt matter if it was just blu-ray or not because we have the dvd industry by the balls and on the 9th we just tugged really hard at'em. The funny thing is that there will just be more of this to come.....
It actually sold 3 million copies worldwide on it's first day, 600,000 of them being Blu-Ray. RDJ + Favs can pucker up and kiss Batman's a**. Iron Man 2 won't even do this well.
Got mine last night from Amazon, can't wait to watch it. Sadly, the Blu-ray is dead mantra is still being chanted. On the Deadline Hollywood daily blog, Nikki Finke reported on this story and, right after stating the numbers for the BD, stated something like "but it is already well known that Blu-ray is on its way to being the next LD niche" or something to that extent. I put a comment about that on the story and would encourage anyone here who has time to drop in there and help set her straight. Nikki seems really spot on on a lot of industry stuff but has always been sadly lacking in tech knowledge and has been willing to regurgitate what is being said by tech bloggers and mainstream so-called tech gurus.
The people saying Blu is dead are just HD mourners. Look at every commerical about a movie release, it is released on both Blu and standard same day which is great. Next year when cable switches to digital I really believe the Blu ray high-def format will take an up swing. Sooner or later the cry baby HD supporters will convert just like the pro VHS people did with the DvD. Most TVs now are being made HD now, time is rapidly approaching where the world goes blu.
People said the samething when the dvd arrived. There is no way the DvD will last, it was too expensive. Now look the roles have reversed. Standard dvds are so cheap they are basically being pushed out like the vhs tape now most people just don't realize it.
People are just trying to compare Blu to the Laser Disc which was a dead format when it arrived. The geniuses behind that should be slapped. Lets not put them anywhere people can get them and have prices from $14.99 to 109.99 for a single movie. Stuff like that never sells.
Someone get Aaron Greenberg on the horn and show him those numbers. At the very least, he may reconsider his statement about the Blu-ray format not "being the next DVD" as he so eloquently boasted a short time ago. The numbers should speak for themselves.
I've actually bought 3 copies, 1 BD for ME :-D, 1 DVD for the kid (so he can watch it at his room and car, another DVD for my nephew as a Early Christmas Gift.
All that in reward for Warner going Blu exclusive... 1 BD + 2 DVD = Family Happyness
thedarkangel 1975 - Laserdisc was never a "dead" format, it was just a "niche" format that never managed to crack the mainstream. It debuted in 1978, and continued to be produced until 2000. 22 years is hardly the lifespan of a "dead" format. HD-DVD, on the other hand, was pretty much doomed right out of the gate. Comparing Blu-ray to Laserdisc is ridiculous and mis-informed, it's not even CLOSE to the same situation. Ditto comparing the HD-DVD vs Blu-ray format war to VHS vs Beta (which I still see cropping up again and again). Not even close.
Anyway, great news about the BD sales! I still see the "Blu-ray is dead" whiners spouting their denial all over the place, but whatever. 20% market penetration less than a year after the format war ended? Excsue me, but that looks like a FASTER adoption rate than DVD was bakc in the day. I'd hardly call that a failure, or even close to a POTENTIAL failure. It will be nice when everyone just clams up and starts enjoying this superb new format that we will already have been enjoying for several years by then.
Since the year is coming to a close, I can now safely say that TDK was my favorite movie of 2008. Come Oscar time, it deserves to win every award it gets nominated for. Heath....will be sorely missed in the next sequel. When I went to see this in theaters, I was thinking that seeing H.L. portray the Joker will be somewhat distracting due to his tragic death. But as I was watching it, I remember thinking to myself that I almost forgot all about what happened because he did such an amazing job playing this role and I was totally absorbed by the character and not the actor. He was completely unrecognizable. It was the Joker up there, not Heath.
Ok, anyway, Love this movie and think its great news for Blu-ray. Now theres a new record....wonder whats gonna top this?
yeah THE DARK NIGHT rules i watch 8 times in blu-ray and 5 times in theatres = 13 times total jeje i very LOVED this movie is A GREAT MARTERPICE the BEST SUPEHEROE MOVIE SINCE SPIDERMAN 2.
the special features are great and my DIGITAL COPY is now in I TUNES.
I just had one of my co-workers ask me if I bought The Dark Knight yet since she knows I have a Blu-ray player. I told her about the review of the film on Blu-ray.com and how great the picture and audio quality is on it. She then said how she wants Blu-ray.
Movies this big sell Blu-ray players; maybe not immediately, but down the line at some point.
I told her about the PS3 and how right now it is the best Blu-ray player available with the start up time, movie load times, etc.. She didn't even know that the PS3 could play Blu-ray movies before I had told her.
On the other hand, one of my other co-workers stated that Blu-ray is "not that much better." I presume he meant compared to DVDs. We were talking about XBox 360 vs. PS3.
I think I will have to straighten him out with some hard evidence.
That's good to hear. I got mine last Wednesday from Amazon. I just watched it last night, loud as it is meant to be and it was awesome! The only thing that gets me in the movie is the way Batman talks sooo low like he has laryngitis. Compared to his voice on part 1, his voice on TDK is bad. Other than that, I still give it an A+.
The voice wasn't bad, you just need a better center channel. Voice sounded ok on my system, could hear his voice loud and clear. Same as the 1st movie.
i'm glad that this title is selling so well.
yet some reviewers are somewhat let down with the pq.
so am i.
1.they used vc-1 where they could have gone avc.
2.they went with a lower bit rate to fit special features.
they should look at titles from fox,paramount,uni and disney,ok sony too.
this is by far the biggest bd title this year,and warners missed the boat on pq.
you would think they would have put a little more effort in the pq of the movie
come on warners step it up!!
.... not like dvd/vhs transition 
