The DVD and Blu-ray release of blockbuster film Avatar has set the tills ringing in stores and online and is predicted to become one of the biggest releases of all time.
Entertainment retailer HMV expects more than 1.5 million copies of the film, released on Monday, to be sold across all retailers in its first week of release. This would make it one of the biggest week one releases ever - vying with Mamma Mia, which currently holds that title.
A spokesman for HMV said that more than a third of its sales were in the Blu-ray format.
Amazon UK said that Avatar was its biggest ever Blu-ray pre-order, overtaking The Dark Knight.
A spokesman for the etail giant said: “Avatar is currently dominating the Amazon.co.uk chart with the DVD and Blu-ray taking the number one and number two positions, and we fully expect it to go on to be one of the biggest selling DVDs of the year, and potentially of all time.”
Play.com has already taken 50% more pre-orders for the Blu-ray format of the film than it did with The Dark Knight and it also expects it to be the biggest ever Blu-ray release.
Tesco opened 180 stores at midnight to mark the release. The grocer said it expects the film to boost sales of the Blu-ray format, saying it believes it will do for Blu-ray “what The Matrix did for DVD” in 1999.
Sainsbury’s also opened some stores early and Asda transformed some of its stores to look like the fictional land of Pandora where the film is set. Staff painted their faces like the characters in the film and translated phrases at customer service tills into the fictional Na’vi language featured in the film.
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