The Dark Knight Sells 1.7 Million Blu-rays In First Week

[Woochifer]

All signs were pointing towards a monster debut when The Dark Knight sold 600,000 Blu-ray copies on the first day. Now, the totals are in for the first week -- 1.7 million BDs sold worldwide, with about 1 million in the U.S. alone. This shatters all of the previous BD sales records by a long shot, and the title will easily fly past the 2 million mark by the end of the year.

The interesting item worth noting is that the total home video sales worldwide in all formats were 13.5 million copies. This means that Blu-ray's market share was 13% for the week, a big decline from the early reports that showed Blu-ray accounting for more than 20% of the total unit sales. Could be a case where the Blu-ray buyers were more eager to get it early, or it could be a sign of slower Blu-ray sales in the overseas markets.

Still though, this remains a watershed event comparable to the 1999 DVD debut of The Matrix, which was the first DVD to sell more than 1 million copies.

The only question now is whether this now solidifies the Blu-ray format's market position, and sparks further gains in hardware adoption similar to what happened after The Matrix debuted on DVD.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2184

[kexodusc]

Funny thing....I was at Futureshop last night...all 3 people in line in front of us had BluRay players in hand...and the dudes there have said they're selling more BluRay hardware than DVD hardware now. Maybe that's been the case for awhile, I don't know...but I wonder what the first big release after Christmas will be? Maybe that title will tell us how far the format has come?

[Woochifer]

Funny thing....I was at Futureshop last night...all 3 people in line in front of us had BluRay players in hand...and the dudes there have said they're selling more BluRay hardware than DVD hardware now. Maybe that's been the case for awhile, I don't know...but I wonder what the first big release after Christmas will be? Maybe that title will tell us how far the format has come?

That's a great question, and I don't see anything on the horizon that will challenge The Dark Knight's BD sales record for quite a while.

Looking over the box office chart for 2008, the biggest remaining titles yet to come out on home video are Madagascar 2, Quantum of Solace, and Twilight. None of these titles had more than $200 million at the box office, and 8 out of the top 10 box office performers in 2008 have already come out on Blu-ray. I think that if the Bond flick comes out sometime next spring and sells over 1 million BDs, then that says Blu-ray has come a LONG way -- because that would a case where even a modest box office hit can hit a mark that up to this point had been unattainable.

Also consider that last year's Blu-ray release of Casino Royale was the first BD title to sell over 100,000 copies. Only a year later, Iron Man and Wall-E were the first titles to sell over 500,000 copies. Now, a few months later, you got The Dark Knight poised to sell more than 2 million copies.

In the weeks to come, I think the more interesting trends will center on Blu-ray's market share versus DVD. For a while now, Blu-ray's weekly market share has been maxing out around 9%, and that's driven by the big blockbuster titles which tend to sell over 10% on Blu-ray. With The Dark Knight accounting for anywhere between 13% and 26% of the total disc sales (depending on how the totals are calculated). If the upcoming hit titles like Quantum of Solace can sustain upwards of 15% market share, then that bodes very well for where Blu-ray will be by this time next year.

Anecdotally, Costco now stocks more Blu-ray players than DVD players. My understanding is that on Black Friday, stores sold more Blu-ray players than upconverting DVD players (DVD players overall still outsold Blu-ray because of the many sub-$50 doorbuster models that were available).