The Dark Knight Blu-ray sells 1.7 million in a week, shows Iron Man a magic trick
By Richard Lawler 
posted Dec 17th 2008 6:46AM
posted Dec 17th 2008 6:46AM
The Dark Knight Blu-Ray Sales Shatter All Records
BURBANK, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Dec 17, 2008 The Dark Knight took the world by storm on Blu-ray and DVD, breaking records for 2008. The blockbuster hit from acclaimed director Christopher Nolan became an instant must-own classic with Blu-ray sales of over 1.7 million units and total DVD and Blu-ray sales of 13.5 million worldwide*, including consumer sales and rental sales, in one week. Brisk consumer sales – totaling over 10 million with one week of sales reported - are expected to continue through the holiday season. The Dark Knight is the best selling Blu-ray title in history and will become the best selling 2008 title overall this week. The response to the digital copy offering included on the Blu-ray and Special Edition DVD has been remarkable with the number of consumers activating their digital copies approaching 300,000. The Dark Knight is already the number one movie for the year on the iTunes 2008 Chart.
The Dark Knight marks the first time that a major feature film has been shot in part using IMAX® cameras, marking a revolutionary integration of film formats. The Dark Knight Blu-ray disc takes advantage of the marriage of IMAX® and 35mm formats by using the hybrid master to replicate the unique theatrical experience. The IMAX scenes are also included on the 2-disc Special Edition as bonus materials.
The Dark Knight comes from Academy Award® nominated filmmaker Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Prestige, Memento), and features commanding performances from Christian Bale (Batman Begins, 3:10 to Yuma, The Prestige), Academy Award® Winner Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules, Children of Men), Academy Award® Nominee Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain), Gary Oldman (Hannibal, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), Aaron Eckhart (Thank You For Smoking, No Reservations), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Stranger Than Fiction, World Trade Center) and Academy Award® Winner Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby, Wanted).
THE CREDITS
With operations in 90 international territories Warner Home Video, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, commands the largest distribution infrastructure in the global video marketplace. Warner Home Video's film library is the largest of any studio, offering top quality new and vintage titles from the repertoires of Warner Bros. Pictures, Turner Entertainment, Castle Rock Entertainment, Village Roadshow, HBO Home Video, and New Line Home Entertainment.
* The Dark Knight figures included sales data from US, UK, Canada, Japan, Benelux and Australia
After the whole fiasco with Paramount cooking the Transformers numbers on HD-DVD I can't help it and be skeptical about this. Don't get me wrong, The Dark Knight was in very high demand prior to its release. But, I just don't trust the studios.
It seems possible, this is a hit title and has a more general audience than Iron Man. Which probably explains why it didn't seem to suffer from the PS3 effect in the same way as many other titles of this kind have had.
Marketshare Blu-ray to DVD seems to be around 12%, respectable for a BD title but not the kind of killer share we've seen with other titles like Iron Man, which was heavily distorted by PS3 demographic sales. A lot of people have been talking about this being Blu-ray's answer to DVD's The Matrix, but that isn't apparently what has happened.
I'm inclined to believe these figures. They're for worldwide sales, and it's a title everyone's been talking about for a while.
A Bootleggers Classic as well, No Doubt! Sold 250 Units in less than an hour back in August @$5per
"try to figure out what movie has a chance of breaking the #1 sales figure next"
New releases always do better sales wise, but I'd bet that either Lord of The Rings or Star Wars would be big sellers. As far as planned releases on Blu-ray, I have no idea.
You know, I don't think those movies even have a chance...being catalog titles, they won't draw the first-week crowds that new releases do. Also, many people have spent so much money buying Lord of the Rings and Star Wars multiple editions that they may hesitate to upgrade again.
I don't think catalog titles can touch this number - it'll take a new release. The only title I think has a chance is Terminator:Salvation when it comes out on Blu-ray around next Christmas.
In their lifetime I expect that titles like Star Wars, Godfather, Lord of the Rings will sell far in excess of a million copies each. They may or may not top the chart when they are (re)released, but they sell strongly for a very long time which is why the studios love them so much.
Only movie that might come close in the next year is the watchmen
Transformers 2 maybe?
The biggest deal here are the DVD sales numbers.
They are huge.
I bet no-one expected DVD sales to be so enormous.
True, the Blu-ray numbers are undeniably their best so far - but you would be pushed to find a movie more targeted at the multi-millions of PS3 owners out there.
Which is why, PS3 owner numbers and the appeal of this movie to them considered, I'd call a mere 1.7 million a disappointment.
Assuming the numbers are true, as Rob says (above), of course.
If Warners really are have exceeded their expectations I'd say that says more about the artificially subterranean level at which they set those projections.
(and as a movie? Pffffh, it's really not all that.
Sorry to be cynical about it but the truth is that Heath Ledger's untimely death was such a boost)
I wonder if the BDA will have the guts to show whether the movie has 'legs' on Blu-ray and issue sales numbers at the 3, 6, 9 & 12mth points?
I'd love to see an unvarnished Blu-ray v DVD unit sales comparison at 12mths.
I have a feeling you would never be positive about anything regarding Blu-ray!
What would you have considered a success for this title in regards of sale numbers?
Why do you continue to post here when you have such a hard-on for regular ol' DVDs?
This is Engadget*HD*.
I suppose I'd start to consider whether or not they are a success when they stop spinning the numbers and begin to present straight comparisons.
If there was genuine transparency in the unit sales numbers then it would be clear and obvious for all to see.
Unfortunately there isn't and so it's not hard to suspect everything the BDA or their members say on the matter, their interest in pushing a higher margin product is far too obvious & clear for all to see.
How many PS3s have been sold? 12.5 million according to nexgenwars.
Only getting 1.7 million sales out of that installed base (less including the stand-alones out there) doesn;t strike me as a great success.
Amit it, this movie could hardly have been more aimed at them.
Big Wizz
You own "hard on" for Blu-ray (as if is the only HD to be had anyways) has you blinded to the fact that the BDA numbers are not honest and spin-free.
You carry on enjoying being manipulated and lied to if you like.
When they start posting honest facts then I'll quit picking the obvious holes in their BS.
Oh look, they just tried to ban me again.
What's up EngadgetHD, can't take a contrary opinion that doesn't prostrate itself before the 'awesome' Blu-ray, huh?
LMAO
Stop copying and pasting your own comments repeatedly and maybe you won't trip the automatic spam filter. If you'd like to be banned again, all you have to do is ask.
I'm sorry, there are simply only three ways you don't like this movie:
You hate Batman
You hate crime drama
You hate comic book film
From a purely "good movie" list of standards it's not an arguable point.
I understand not liking something when it's just not your thing, but I feel like the people who don't like The Dark Knight are the same folks who loved the iPod until everyone else did.
I LOVED Ironman, I was actually starting to think that Batman was up against an unbeatable opponent, especially being a sequel.
Here's the thing:
Ironman was great because it took another of my fantasies and put it on screen in a mind blowing fashion. It was an amazing full speed ahead comic-book film and I would argue in the top 5 comic book films ever made.
The Dark Knight took one of my fantasies and made it REAL, like this could be fucking happening in New York right now if there was a super-motivated guy with limitless resources. It was also more than a comic book movie. It was a great crime drama as well as a statement on the human psyche.
Both great movies in their respective categories, but the Dark knight bridged so many of those categories. Not a lot of films do that.
Oh look, cry baby is back.
Ahhhh, the prodigal son returns, others will disagree but I have missed the banter provided by TT and others :-))
I was actually very disappointed with the 2nd disc "special features." Two History channel programs that already ran on cable TV and some fake Gotham news stories all with minimal DK footage.
Absolute crap, IMO. However, the extra's on the main disc were solid.
And....
The movie still ROCKS.
I agree about the second disk. The extras are largely pointless filler material. I really liked the extras on the first disk though.
1.7 million bags of hurt
1.7 million bags of MONEY.
/fixed.
Wow, the "number on spot" on iTunes! Is that even better that number one?
I enjoyed TDK, I thought Heath Ledgers portrayal of the Joker was spectacular, however, personally, I I wouldn't buy it, I much preferred Batman Begins and it is a movie I will watch many times over with the family.
Sorry holto but you trying to tell me I "hate" is just lazy nonsense, I wasn't impressed.
Poor pace and lumpy would be my view.
It can't be comic books either, I really enjoyed Sin City.
'Dr' Tedious
Go bore someone else with your feeble little name-calling jibes.
I find his TT3s views on the movie to be (mostly) accurate from where I'm sitting, too. I don't honestly know what "lumpy" means in terms of a story, though, so I'm only mostly with him. Regardless, I still bought it as there are scenes I really enjoy (police escort with the (s)laughter semi chasing after) but I won't watch that movie in it's entirety again any time soon because I did feel like it had pacing issues and they used a few phrases repeatedly that bothered me. "Play things close to the chest" was spoken by wayne to fox and later by dent to gordon. I'd never even heard that phrase before but apparently it's makin' the rounds in Gotham!
It doesn't look like anyone has mentioned that 1.7 million blu-ray versus 11.8 million DVD is 14.4% market share. While that's more than the weekly average, it still feels fairly closely in line. For a title so many people said they bought a BD player for (me included, honestly), I really would have expected the market share to be higher. This just sounds like a whole lot of copies of the movie were sold and a slightly better, though still close, percentage were BD.
I'm assuming that he means the drama of the story was a rollercoaster of a movie. There were very high moments and very low moments. I don't argee, but the movie needed to be shorter give or take 20 minutes. I think that the numbers aren't suprising at all. The Dark Knight isn't positioned to be a family friendly movie. Which is the majority of sales. It's has a PG-13 rating but honestly it's closer to R than a compareable movie like Ironman. Iroman fits in a better demographic for sales than Dark Knight, but dark knight sold 3 times the copies.
@ FreeRange
You've never heard the expression "play things close to the chest?" It's not a new expression. It's actually an extremely common idiom that came from playing cards. You're obviously free to be bothered by whatever you want about a movie, that just seems like a ridiculous nitpick since it's based on your lack of knowledge of something and not the film inventing an expression.
Sure, not every person who owns a PS3 ran out and bought this last week. I didn't, but not because I don't love the movie. Christmas is a week away, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person expecting to get it as a gift this year. I'll be curious to see what the post-holiday numbers are.
@WordSlinger:
Google search: Results 1 - 10 of about 474 for "play things close to the chest"
It's really not that common of a phrase, it seems, or it was misworded? I really did try to find the origin of the idiom but was unsuccessful.
What I did find though were things like this: http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/278
• Early in "The Dark Knight," Bruce Wayne tells Lucius Fox he's "playing this one close to the chest," referring to his dealings with a military cell phone project. About 45 minutes later, Harvey Dent says this to Jim Gordon: "You do play things close to the chest!" A piece of mismatched dialogue like that must be on purpose, right? The Nolans must be implying that Dent and Gordon are working more closely together than we realize, right?
and this: http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/26248989.html?page=9
Bruce tells Fox he's playing this one close to the chest, but when Gordon opens the truck with Harvey in it, Harvey says, "You do like to play things close to the chest", even when both those characters didn't have the first exchange.
It just felt like a continuity error to me, not so much the use of a mystery idiom. I like to learn where things come from so thank you for the cards thing as a google search didn't reveal that.
@FreeRange
Well, I'm not sure if it's "misworded" or just one of several variations of the phrase. Other slight variations I've heard are "close to the vest" "keeping your cards close to your chest," "playing your cards close to the vest/chest," but they all mean the same thing of course, just that someone isn't being completely open about what they are doing. Try Googling it without quotes around it and you'll find a ton more.
It may be a mismatch, or Nolan may have done it on purpose to keep making slight references to playing cards with the whole Joker thing, but I doubt it. It's really not my place to say.
Free Range you are wrong and watch the movie again.
The comment of playing his cards close to the chest started when Gordon went into Dent's office and Gordon wanted Dent to sign for warrents to go hit all the banks at once. He stated that he plays his cards close to his chest.
Also playing cards close to the chest was a common phrase used by officers undercover.
But it is used a lot in Poker, not having those watching know how you play your poker hands.
@Fred: Would this be the scene? They didn't use the phrase. I typed it up for good measure so you could give it a read and maybe watch it again to be sure. Different scene, perhaps?
Seriously, I think the phrase was only used twice but by two different groups of people. When Dent says it to Gordon though it really does sound like they've discussed it before but it wasn't in this scene.
Gordon: I hell you've got a hell of a right cross. It's a shame Sal is going to walk.
Dent: Yeah, well, good thing about the mob is they keep giving you second chances. (flips through stack of money) Lightly eradiated bills. Fancy stuff for a city cop. Have help?
Gordon: We lias with various agencies.
Dent: Save it, Gordon, I want to meet him.
Gordon: Official policy is to arrest the vigialante known as Batman on sight.
Dent: Uh huh, and what about that flood light on the top of MCU?
Gordon: If you've got problems with malfunctioning equipment, I suggest you take them up with maintenance, counselor.
Dent: I've put every known money launderer in Gotham behind bars, and the mob is still getting it's money out. I think you, and your friend, have found the last game in town and you're trying to hit them where it hurts. Their wallets. It's bold. You gonna count me in?
Gordon: In this town, the fewer people that know something, the safer the operation.
Dent: Gordon, I don't like that you've got your own special unit, and I don't like that it's full of cops I investigated at Internal Affairs.
Gordon: If I didn't work with cops you investigated while you were making your name at IA, I'd be working alone. I don't get political points for being an idealist, I have to do the best I can with what I have.
Dent: You want me to back warrants for search and seizure on five banks without telling me what we're after?
Gordon: I can give you the names of the banks.
Dent: Well, that's a start. I'll get you your warrants; but I want your trust.
Gordon: Oh, you don't have to sell me, Dent. We all know you're Gotham's white knight.
Dent: Yeah, well, I heard they have got a different name for me down at MCU.
Gordon: I wouldn't know about that.
Scene End.
Gordon: In this town, the fewer people that know something, the safer the operation.
That means less people, playing things closer to the chest.
Now the fact that you are nit picking on specific lines shows that you are just looking for a fault in this movie. Tell me a movie you like and we will start to destry the script.
Plus because you never heard a phrase, does not mean it does not exist.
But I could be wrong, Free Range might know every phrase used in humanity.
Jeese, I can't believe I am responding to this crap, but I have nothing to do at work right now.
Oh, i'm sorry, I thought we were actually talking about the dialog and not the inferred dialog. Because I was talking about the actual dialog.
And since I didn't know the phrase, (never suggested it WASN'T a phrase, just said I didn't know it... There is a difference) I didn't think to look for the inferred suggestion earlier.
I liked Ronin if you want to go all nuts trying to find fault with it. Knock yourself out. Or, failing that, get back to work.
I knew their was a reason why I like freerange. I take it you did not read my lower post, the next Blu-Ray title i want is Ronin.
Love the get back to work comment.
@Fred,
You're good people. Your avatar has been my desktop image for longer than I can remember.
Common ground, my friend. Common ground.
I want a Jean Reno film where he beats the shit out of Jason Statham. There, I said it. Don't know why I said it, but I did.
This argument is stupid, the idiom "play things close to the chest" (and variants thereof) is extremely common. I'm sure there are people who've never heard the phrase before, just as there must be people who've never heard of Star Wars. But I don't think there is any rule that a movie sucks just because of a viewer's ignorance of a phrase within it.
@drxym - Seriously! Whoever said it sucked was way off base. Was it you? Because you're crazy if you did and I simply cannot agree with you! Because I never said it sucked. Never did, never will, no matter how hard you may want me to. I think it's a tremendous movie and Christopher Nolan, his special effects team, and all of the actors created something spectacular.
It's just a bit long for me so I'll watch bits and pieces for now. And, to be honest, I'm thinking I may want to see it again in it's entirety but I understand it's being re-released in imax next month so I'm debating that if I'm going to sit through it again any time soon, I should choose that screen over my 32-inch. Does that sound reasonable?
Little story for you: I had a girlfriend (a very smart girl) while I was in college who was so sure I grew up in a hick town that when I'd say idioms I'd picked up she would laugh because she was from the big city, and big city people didn't say those things. One day I said, "Call a spade a spade" and she asked what a spade was so I told her it was a shovel. She laughed at me and said it was another one of those silly hick phrases; about a shovel, no less! Nevermind that I picked it up from Hamlet Act 5, scene 1 (I use it a bit differently, though, as the actual phrase, word for word, is harder to fit into a conversation). Moral of the story: Different people know different phrases and that's fine.
My comment, if you'll read it (guessing you didn't since you seem to think someone said the movie sucked), was how it was used repeatedly. Not that it was used at all.
OMG BD is dead nobody buys BD movies dead format /fanboy
It says something when in this rancid economy, people are running out to spend 2X the price of a DVD for a BD movie.
Thats great news for me and all comic fans i have yet to pick this up for my ps3 and the digital copy for my ipod touch is a must.
Stop crying people! It suprasses amolst twice the spectation Warner had.
Go Blu!
If the studio feels the release was a success on BD, then it is a win for format and the consumers because that means the studios see potential profit in the format and longevity. That means more money will be spent bringing even more titles to the format.
For those who still hold hope of Bl-ray's demise, keep on hoping, perhaps one day if you wait long enough, blu-ray will eventually be replaced by something else and you can claim blu-ray has died....then you can go home to mommy and celebrate...
It's got nothing to do with hoping for Blu-ray to fail Jim, and you know it.
It has everything to do with the lack of honesty in reporting the numbers and where things are and particularly the laughable deception that has been going on right from the start as the BDA try to make out that Blu-ray stands a hope in hell of replacing DVD.
It doesn't - and the DVD sales numbers for this movie simply go to make that very very clear.
Everyone knows (because DVD is a mature market) that launch sales do not reflect the whole story, you need to see the DVD numbers at the 3 or 6mth point as prices fall, whereas Blu-ray's sales (as a largely early adopters format) tail off relatively quickly.
That's the truth of the situation, and whilst the CE corps and the movie studios might gurn and cry about low unit margins on DVD it is more than made up for by far larger volume sales.
You're right about one thing though, Blu-ray will end up being replaced - just don't be too surprised if it's a lot sooner than you want to believe.
'The next DVD' it most certainly is not.
TT,
No, blu-ray won't completely replace DVD in the SD world, but as more and more HD begins to trickle into the living room, Blu-ray will continue to increase. We're less than a year since a single HD format was crowned the winner and no sane person would expect immediate mass adoption. It will be a gradual adoption as the HDTV market heats up that will be a leading indicator of blu-ray's growth. Blu-ray has infiltrated Walmart's electronic sections of America. It is becoming a very visible and recognizable next-gen movie platform that all who drool over HDTV's will also see Blu-ray as part of their dream system.
It's happening. Couple weeks ago, I went to buy a Samsung BDP-1500 at Walmart for $198, there were only two left, all other blu-ray players were sold out, including thet $120 something Memorex BD player. 2009 like I have said before will be a growth period and an indicator of how strong the format and demand for HD media will be.
Right now BD is not the next DVD, because just as DVD has reigned during the SD age, Blu-ray will reign during the coming HD age....
Well said JimC
Also in the product life cycle everything gets replaced. At the begining DVD was an upstart and eventually it replaced VHS and CDs (software).
Blu-ray can't be quite as successful as SD DVD's cause only about 30 to 35% of homes have HDTV's. If you don't have an HDTV why would you buy a Blu-ray? I think Blu-ray has been pretty successful of late for a new format. Most of my friends that own an HDTV and either a PS3 or Stand alone Blu-ray have bought Dark Knight and Iron Man. I tell ya, the PQ and AQ of Dark Knight really was incredible on my home theater system. 4 friends and my wife watched it
this past weekend and at the end we just all just said WOW! Dark Knight really shows off what Blu-ray can do. I think it will only help sell more Blu-ray players to people who own HDTV's.
I really think the numbers are shocking. The fact that the economy is so bad and people are losing jobs, yet people are willing to go out and buy TDK in Blu/DVD.
But looking at it the other way... this movie was expected to break records because of how much it made in the theatres, coupled with the time of year this is coming out (Christmas).
Now for the bad news, I don't think their is a Blu movie I want to buy for a while until Mid February when Ronin is released on Blu.
For anyone thinking the numbers were cooked, trust me, they're not. I work at a Best Buy in Louisville where we have already went through our first shipments of TDK on blu-ray, which was just over 600 copies, and are well on our way of going through our second shipment. Even we're a little surprised at how well it has sold on blu-ray.
BTW, it looks AWESOME.
Wow y'all take this thing so seriously. As far as I'm concerned its a great film & looks great on Blu-Ray. That's all that matters to me. Who gives Brahma Bull's behind if the numbers reported for sales are true or false. In the end it changes nothing whether they are or not.