The Dark Knight shatters sales record, moves 600,000 Blu-ray Discs on day one

by Darren Murph posted Dec 11th 2008 at 9:02AM

The numbers are in, and they're big. Just as predicted, Warner Brothers' The Dark Knight was a huge day-one success, with consumers in the US, Canada and UK snapping up three million copies during the first 24 hours (give or take a few) that it was on sale. More germane to our conversation, however, is this 600,000 figure, which tells exactly how many Blu-ray Discs were sold. We already know that around one-sixth of those were moved in the UK, leaving us to determine that North America did some serious shopping. The studio has now projected it to sell one million BDs by Saturday, and curiously enough, current sales have been "especially strong at grocery stores, indicating that the format is broadening beyond early adopters to more mainstream buyers, notably women." Needless to say, this title took down Iron Man's record of moving 250,000 BDs on day one, which just ratchets up the bar for the next big one to take down.

[Thanks, Geoff]

Filed under: Blu-ray

Tags: bd, blu-ray, blu-ray adoption, blu-ray disc, Blu-rayAdoption, Blu-rayDisc, dark knight, DarkKnight, film, global, movie, record, sales, the dark knight, TheDarkKnight, title, uk, warner bros, warner bros., WarnerBros, WarnerBros.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Elmopio @ Dec 11th 2008 9:21AM

That morning, I went to my local Wally World here in Northeast PA at 4am before work at 8 and there was only 3 bd left. I was surprised

Highly Ranked

Mark @ Dec 11th 2008 9:25AM

Got this yesterday it's a great movie and a great disk. Picture and audio quality are great. There is slight EE in a few scenes but you'd be hard pressed to see it unless you were looking for it. What pleases me most is that when you play the disk the movie starts playing, at least in my European version. There is a little BD-J progress twirly and then it automatically plays the movie. No trailers, no menus, no nothing, just the movie. I wish Disney would get a clue and stop sticking trailers on the front of their movies.

Highest Ranked

TrentD @ Dec 11th 2008 9:30AM

I wish there was a menu. Trailers before a movie are inexcusable and annoying, but it's also annoying that the movie just starts. It takes my player about 1-2 minutes from power on to movie start...then randomly the movie starts. I then have to call up the menu (over the movie) and select TrueHD and whatever other features, which kind of ruins the mystique of a movie's opening scenes.

I'd rather select all my options from a menu, THEN start the movie.

Highly Ranked

RDS @ Dec 11th 2008 9:31AM

I agree Mark. Start to the Movie was great. No fooling around with trailers. PQ/SQ was amazing. Very Deep BASS. Little to much for my girl who bitched everytime I watched it. Just had to get used to 35mm and IMax footage.

Lowest Ranked

worldbfree4me @ Dec 11th 2008 9:37AM

Blu like quality in my HD-DVD Nice!!
(Rented a Blu copy from my local Block Buster, Ripped it and Decrypted it using AnyDVD and burned it to a Double Layer DVD)

Highest Ranked

TrentD @ Dec 11th 2008 10:36AM

Whiners will disagree, but you just stole the movie. Congratulations on being a crook and bragging about it on the internet.

Highly Ranked

Jonsson @ Dec 11th 2008 2:34PM

Congratulations for being a simple criminal and bragging about it. How low can one get?

Highest Ranked

imac12 @ Dec 11th 2008 9:46AM

It'd be even better if it didn't have some annoying audio glitches when it switches between TrueHD and Digital for the IMAX scenes.

Neutral

img eL @ Dec 11th 2008 10:22AM

Do the aspect ratio change for the IMAX scenes?

Neutral

David S @ Dec 11th 2008 2:46PM

I haven't heard of any issues with Audio glitches concerning "switches between TrueHD and Digital for the IMAX scenes". Care to explain a bit more? I wonder if this affects only people who internally decode or people who pass through TrueHD to the receiver.

Highly Ranked

minimalist @ Dec 11th 2008 3:43PM

No audio glitches here. But the aspect ratio does change between the IMAX footage and the rest of the film. You don't really notice it unless you are specifically looking for it though.

Neutral

hey hey @ Dec 11th 2008 12:27PM

TrueHD track is total madness. It was late last night, so I had no choice but to shut down my subwoofer, even at low volume levels.

Highest Ranked

TrentD @ Dec 11th 2008 1:23PM

"This is Madness!"

"No...This...Is...TRUEHD!"

::Kicks standard 5.1 sound into the death pit::

Neutral

Andy Sullivan @ Dec 11th 2008 10:15AM

Hopefully if the studios see these kinds of sales numbers they will not become the typical fat cats and keep prices high. Instead they can see the possibilities of lowering prices and garnering even bigger numbers, especially on the non blockbuster releases.

Neutral

Mike @ Dec 11th 2008 10:10AM

So how many Iron man have been sold to date? What will be the next big title? Star Trek around 1 million in sales?

Lowest Ranked

SeannyD @ Dec 11th 2008 10:16AM

I wonder how many Blu discs are bought by accident, especially at places like grocery stores.

"These sandwiches look delicious! Hey, is that the Dark Knight? I should buy that!"

Two hours later...

"Why doesn't this work in my DVD player?!"

Highest Ranked

Dave @ Dec 11th 2008 11:21AM

Unlike hd dud, the Blu-ray movies are significantly more recognizable. You failed at trolling.

Neutral

Truth Teller 2 @ Dec 12th 2008 2:10PM

How is that?

Blu-ray use a silly blue plastic strip of colour at the top and bottom whereas HD DVD used a silly red strip of colour.

Both rather sad ideas IMO.

Neutral

Brian K @ Dec 11th 2008 11:52AM

You have a valid point. When I was renting the movie at BlockBusters, the sales woman asked me if I had a Blu-ray player, leading me to believe that a lot of renters have been mistakenly picking up a Blu-ray disc not know any better. I'm sure that same scenario is being played out for purchasers at grocery stores, etc.,

Lowest Ranked

MHAithaca @ Dec 11th 2008 11:20AM

Or, the supermarket buyers could also be largely unaware of what Blu-ray Disc is, and they're buying the movie thinking it will work in their twelve-year-old Panasonic DVD players.

Highest Ranked

Grapist @ Dec 11th 2008 11:31AM

Odds are that if they bought a Panasonic DVD player TWELVE years ago, they would have a Blu-Ray player by now. Since they were early adopters and bought a DVD player when they first came out.

My local comic book shop (which happened to break street for TDK) usually only has DVDs in stock (they carry movies that would cater to the Sci-Fi/Comic book loving crowd). Yet for the Dark Knight, they had Blu-Rays in stock. This movie is going to be to Blu-Ray what the Matrix was for DVDs.

And cover for every copy says "only working in Blu-Ray Players/PS3s" so I wouldn't be too worried.

Highly Ranked

Jason @ Dec 11th 2008 11:44AM

I thought the movie was amazing and I love seeing all these high blu-ray sales.

I honestly wonder how many people bought it for the movie and how many more bought it simply because it was Heath Ledgers last fully completed film.

Highest Ranked

Spiza @ Dec 11th 2008 11:48AM

Or the bought it because Ledger gave us the best performance of the decade, and possibly the best villain ever.

Low Ranked

Mike @ Dec 11th 2008 6:48PM

Jack did it better!

Neutral

Bozster @ Dec 11th 2008 1:01PM

So hold on now.. can we at least ONCE get the numbers that are unified. So 600k units sold worldwide or in the States? I don't understand. How many DVDs were sold worldwide then? and were other numbers for titles like IronMan include worldwide sales or US?

I'm confused. I'm really slowing getting sick of pumping up numbers as they see fit just to show higher numbers. It was not questionable whether or not this movie would sell good but let's have numbers that are unified and not all over the place.

Neutral

HowardLive @ Dec 11th 2008 1:17PM

Well, Darren said a sixth of the 600,000 first-day sales in BD were in the UK, which leaves half a million copies cold in the U.S. and Canada combined.

Highest Ranked

daaper @ Dec 11th 2008 1:33PM

All over the place? Hmm, I thought it was pretty clear. 3 million (DVD/BR) total world-wide, 600,000 of those were BR, and at least 107,000 were sold in the UK. This leaves about 500,000 for North America and the rest of the world.

Low Ranked

Jonsson @ Dec 11th 2008 2:38PM

Obviously a HD-DVD soore looser (as well as a troll)

Neutral

Jonsson @ Dec 11th 2008 2:40PM

This was supposed to be a reply to Seanny. Do not understand why it ended up at the end of the post list :-(

Neutral

Iridium @ Dec 12th 2008 3:01AM

I wish they would have removed the mask from the rest of the movie and kept the whole thing in 16:9. It is a little stange to have the movie switch from 16:9 IMAX to 2.4:1 then back to 16:9. The IMAX footage is far superior to the rest of the movie and wow I got to use my whole TV.

Blah, blah, blah ruining director intent. 2.3:1 is superior to 16:9, you lose detail. I wonder how the cinema purists are feeling. Are they applauding the aspect ratio shifts?

Removing the mask adds more detail and more picture, just like the Iron Man deleted scenes where the mask is imposed over the initial cut. Then you see the final scene and notice peoples heads are cut off.

Neutral

Mark @ Dec 12th 2008 7:34AM

I think it would have been nice to have the proper 35mm transfer with seamless branching for the 70mm shots. Then there would be no EE to complain of, and still the choice of IMAX shots. Pick your poison. I can understand why it might have been a huge pain in the ass for WB to do it though. Seamlessly stiching parts of the IMAX theatrical release into the 35mm theatrical release could be pretty tricky.

Neutral

Truth Teller 2 @ Dec 12th 2008 2:12PM

I wonder when they'll get the nads to start telling people how sales are going at the 3, 6, 9 & 12mth point?

I'm not holding my breath.

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