A week after hitting store shelves, the Blu-ray release of Warner Brothers 'The Dark Knight' has sold over 1.7 Million units worldwide, shattering all previous Blu-ray sales records. The film, which stars Christian Bale as the caped-crusader, is set to break $1 Billion at the box office, and some execs feared that home video sales would be hurt by such success. Those fears were alleviated after selling through 600,000 Blu-ray units on the first day, and sales of the landmark title have been continuing at a record pace.
The worldwide numbers include retail and rental sales in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Benelux, and Australia. The majority of sales came from US buyers, which bought over 1 Million units of the title. Blu-ray sales represented nearly 13% of all home media sales for the title, which sold 13.5 Million units on home video formats.
In comparison, 'The Matrix' DVD release in 1999 - which is generally recognized as the title to spark sales of the format - sold 780,000 units in one week. The Blu-ray release of 'The Dark Knight' has more than doubled that accomplishment.
Blu-ray has been recognized as one of the most wanted items this holiday season, and consumers are responding aggressively towards lower player prices and the high definition releases of many film favorites. Interest in the format has exploded as consumers budgets become tighter and they realize they can get the same or better movie watching experience in their home with Blu-ray for a lot less money.
To quote Anna Paquin from her role as Polexia Aphrodisia in the film 'Almost Famous, "It's all happening!"
Excellent to have been on the Blu train for a while and to see it succeed. I wonder how I would fee about the success if I had been Red to start with...
Great for Blu and hopefully Warner releases all their blus to look as great as TDK.
I hope when all 7 Harry Potter movie box set that they do a better transfer on HP 1,2,4.
Also give us Lord Of The Rings.
I contributed to those numbers with 5 blu-ray copies:
Dark Knight Best Buy with Batman Cowl (3 - one to open)
Dark Knight Best Buy with Joker Mask
Dark Knight Steelbook
May go with Dark Knight with Batpod (still deciding). If I do, my total maybe 6 or 7.
I also picked up 3 DVD copies:
Dark Knight Best Buy with Batman Cowl
Dark Knight Best Buy with Joker Mask (2 - one to open)
love reading this and then thinking about that recent cnn money article about the death of the ps3 and the fact that no one cares about HD content (read: blu-ray). guess it's just another person with some weird axe to grind over the success of blu.
I purchased mine last Sunday. Hadn't got to it during the week unfortunately but better a little late than never. Now I need to find time to watch it:-0 I never saw it in the theater:(
In Denmark, The Dark Knight BD sold out at distributor level within the first week of release - they can't fill any new orders before receiving new shipments from the U.S. - Talk about underestimating the market demand! :-)
OMG Great!!! Here in Colombia everyone is picking up Blu Ray players and titles, and PS3 is getting even stronger!!! Great for both, BLU RAY & Warner!!!, this will increase the Blu Ray players sales and obviously the PS3 sales too, hope them to do really good this season...
But, but... some trolls on Amazon posted that the HD-DVD copy of TDK "blows away" the Blu-ray version. Seriously,.. some idiot troll actually posted such bad misinformation and FUD, unbelievable!!! Gosh!
Anyways, I picked up my copy @ Target to get the sweet "Bat Mask" case, and now that I've watched it a few times, I might have to pickup a standard case version so I don't wear out the hinge on the "Bat Mask" case. Might get the "Batpod" version too now. Just wish there were more extras on the disc though.
[edit, addendum] Just watched the "Live Community Screening" with Director (Christopher Nolan) Q&A on BD-Live, and checked out some of the "user commentaries" and other BD-Live extras. Have to say, this is a good use of BD-Live, and they have already added plenty of extras on-line to more than make up for the paltry extras on the discs. There was even a live marriage proposal (from one of the posters to his girlfriend) durring the Directors Q&A,... and she said yes.
Oh, and one of the user commentaies I watched (after the live Q&A screening) was from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Virginia) who had a cameo in the movie (confronted the Joker as he was crashing Bruce Wayne's fundraiser for Harvey Dent), I didn't recognise him untill I watched his user commentary. Watched a few other ones done by people involved with the film, and some done by fans; some were good, some great, some.... meh... confusing!
This movie put Blu Ray on the map. This is the main reason why I made the switch to Blu. i bought my player exactly one week after The Dark Knight was released in theaters!!!
I know of at least 4 ppl in my work that just went Blu!! Im like freaking blockbuster to them! lol 
