After a massive take at the worldwide box office The Dark Knight continues making ridiculous bank, selling over 3 million copies on DVD and Blu-Ray in the first day of release (f you don’t have a copy yet just wait for Christmas, It’ll probably end up stuffed in your stocking).
The Blu-Ray version of The Dark Knight sold approximately 600,000 copies, setting the single day sales record for Blu-Ray. The previous record holder was Iron Man (400,000 copies), which was released earlier this Fall.
I guess Blu-Ray is here to stay, if sales trends like this continue.
Some analysts (a.k.a. internet bloggers) are estimating that The Dark Knight will sell approximately 7 million copies by the end of the week, which would tack another $150-200 million onto its total earnings figure. Redonculous numbers. Finding Nemo remains the bestselling DVD of all time (60 million units), at least for the foreseeable future…
But not everything is sunny in The Dark Knight’s world right now. The film has been snubbed by the Golden Globe Awards, earning just one nomination for Heath Ledger’s phenomenal turn as The Joker. Fear not though: a snub at the Globes in no way means death for The Dark Knight’s chances at the Oscars later this year. In fact, some analysts (again, I mean internet bloggers) believe that the diverging tastes of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences leaves plenty of room for The Dark Knight to make a dark horse run at Oscar glory.
However there remains one problem which will not have a happy ending: the lack of features on The Dark Knight DVD and Blu-Ray. Fans have been waiting for five months to truly delve into the exceptional film that Christopher Nolan and Co. created, and those fans with an expanding collection of Blu-Rays have grown especially accustomed to the laundry list of features those discs offer.
However, as Neil Miller over at Film School Rejects does an excellent job of pointing out, many of the key features you would think would obviously be with the DVD/Blu-Ray of The Dark Knight are noticeably (and frustratingly) absent:
- No kind of feature on Heath Ledger’s process in bringing The Joker to life; no real mention at all of Ledger’s contribution and impact to the film. (I know that powers that be are trying to be respectful of the late actor’s memory, but come on, give the fans what they’ve been clamoring for. What better way to honor an actor’s accomplishment?)
- No real commentary track from Director Chris Nolan. (Just a “Descriptive Narration” from a robotic voice talking over the movie.)
- No deleted scenes. (Chris Nolan doesn’t believe in them, which is fair enough, but if you’re not going to give us commentary or behind the scenes features, at least give us something!)
Neil Miller does a much better breakdown in his post (which you can read here). In the end, while the DVD and Blu-Ray will likely keep flying off the shelves this holiday season, serious fans are grumbling that they got shorted on the extras. Not the kind of disgruntlement you want to have circling you around awards season. No doubt this signals the classic studio “double dip” where a few months after the initial release of a DVD a new, really special edition of the film is released with tons of extra features.
Do you own a copy of The Dark Knight on DVD yet? Or is this the film that is making you go out and buy a Blu-Ray player? Let us know where you stand on this one.
Source: MTV News & Film School Rejects
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