Dark Knight sets Blu-ray record
Format sales on pace to hit 1 million copies in first week
By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 12/11/2008
DEC. 11 | The Dark Knight is a Blu-ray Disc superhero, selling a record 600,000 copies on the new format in the U.S. on its first day of release on Dec. 9, or about 21% of its total units, according to Warner Home Video.
The studio believes U.S. Blu-ray sales could hit 1 million high-def copies in week one—a format milestone—according to WHV president Ron Sanders.
“We think we will hit 1 million this weekend,” said Sanders. “What’s really encouraging about it is that the Blu-ray version did exceptionally well across the board. It wasn’t just selling in Best Buy or Wal-Mart, but also it did well in grocery and game stores. It was surprising to us just how well it did.”
Prior to Dark Knight, the best Blu-ray performer was Paramount Home Entertainment’s Iron Man, which moved 260,000 high-def copies on its first day on sale Sept. 30, and 500,000 units in its first week.
This year’s highest-grossing film, Dark Knight, which generated $530 million in U.S. theatrical ticket sales, moved about 3 million copies in both standard and high-def in the U.S. on its first day of release, according to Warner.
Dark Knight’s standard and Blu-ray figures are specifically taken from sell-through accounts and don’t include copies sold into the rental channel.
Dark Knight’s Blu-ray outing is double the sales that Warner was projecting. Also, its overall standard and Blu-ray sales are 15% ahead of what Warner had predicted for day one.
The movie’s 21% Blu-ray share of sales easily tops the average 10% portion that was generated from releases in the format earlier this year.
The studio is especially pleased with Dark Knight’s Blu-ray sales considering the relatively small hardware base for the format. Sanders believes there will soon be nearly a 100% attachment rate between the little more than 2 million Blu-ray set-top owners and Dark Knight copies.
“The last time a title had the ability to get to 100% was The Matrix,” said Sanders of when Warner’s title was first released on DVD in 1999. “In that case, there were markets that sold as many units as there were [DVD] players installed at the time.”
Although Dark Knight blew apart Warner’s initial estimates, the studio is not re-adjusting its year-end home entertainment assessments because of it. Sanders continues to believe that consumer spending might be down as much as 5% to 6% from 2007. He also is sticking to 2008 Blu-ray revenue reaching $650 million to $800 million, which represents lowered forecasting due to the soft economy.
However, Warner does believe Dark Knight is a good sign that the home entertainment category is behaving fairly well, considering having to operate in the worst economic environment in recent memory.
“The big titles continue to do well,” said Sanders. “The recession does not kill a category. There is more of a flight to quality, where the big titles perform well and the lesser titles perform worse—but the business does not shut down.”
