AfterDawn: News

"300" becomes highest selling HD movie ever

This morning, Warner Home Video announced that HD sales of the blockbuster movie "300" had reached 250,000 making it easily the fastest and highest selling HD title ever.

Warner has 6 of the 10 best selling HD discs including the BBC's "Planet Earth" boxset which is the highest grossing title so far.



The company attributed that fact to the benefits of supporting both HD DVD and Blu-ray as opposed to a single format like many studios have done.

"This phenomenal response to '300' is the latest proof that our approach makes the most sense in today's market and has enabled Warner Home Video to continue to lead the market in high definition sales," Warner Home Video president Ron Sanders said.

Source:
BetaNews

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 6 Aug 2007 19:57

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• 20 comments

• Bobby728

  IT should Sell Great all around!!I thought it was a great movie!!I bought a regular DVD my self.

  7.8.2007 14:42 #1

• hughjars

  Warner are pretty open about the profitability they are getting out of supporting both formats.
  
  I reckon that in 18 - 24mths they'll all be format neutral
  (by they I mean the movie studios).

  7.8.2007 14:49 #2

• Jlhfit

  And..... whats new...

  7.8.2007 15:28 #3

• Cman

  I don't understand why anyone would want a movie basically shot in the dark in HD? 300 was a great movie, but HD? I think that's a waste of money.
  
  How much more detail do you want? More blood? More gore? I think there are times when HD can add to a movie, and other times when its just fluff..

  7.8.2007 15:44 #4

• flyingv

  People are beginning to suck up this whole HD thing and it's smart of movie companys to go ahead and support both formats in order to maximize their potential to get into all of the households regardless of what type of player the people own.

  7.8.2007 18:00 #5

• c1c

  We need to see the realistic detail in the Spartans. Look at their nicely groomed bare chests. Must of had some nice razors back then. Highest selling HD movie ever? Look what it's up against.

  7.8.2007 18:03 #6

• Zaboo

  yeah, good shit, the good stuff.

  7.8.2007 18:57 #7

• SDPadsFan

  Just goes to show - quality will sell.
  
  I will pick it up this weekend.

  8.8.2007 06:27 #8

• maryjayne

  Maybe the MPAA should take a look at these sales and consider making other good movies like this one.

  8.8.2007 06:50 #9

• NexGen76

  So much for a small HD market its growing by every good release.I'm curious to see how much Blu-Ray out sold HD-DVD.
  
  
  
  
  Who's winning the Hi Def war? See for yourself. The information below reflects the percentage of our overall Hi Def items sold by format.
  
  Sales Data by Year / Month Sales Data by Week
  
  HD-DVD Blu-Ray
  
  * Week of Aug. 07th 45.43% 54.57% Blu-Ray winner
  * Week of Jul. 31st 40.96% 59.04% Blu-Ray winner
  * Week of Jul. 24th 46.52% 53.48% Blu-Ray winner
  * Week of Jul. 17th 34.25% 65.75% Blu-Ray winner
  * Week of Jul. 10th 29.94% 70.06% Blu-Ray winner
  * Week of Jul. 03rd 40.75% 59.25% Blu-Ray winner
  * Week of Jun. 26th 42.86% 57.14% Blu-Ray winner
  * Week of Jun. 19th 53.87% 46.13% HD-DVD winner
  
  * percentage of our overall Hi Def items sold by format
  
  http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Features/hidef_wars.asp?view=1

  8.8.2007 06:54 #10

• Mr-Movies

  This is a great movie I was worried that too much CGI was going to be used but they really did a good job and the mix of mythology and history was done really well even though this is a complaint by some. I hope they do the war of Alexander the Great against the Romans during 322B.C. period. Now I wish I would have seen this in the Theater but refrained from doing so thinking Hollyweird would screw this one up.
  
  I wish I had a BD player because I would love to buy the Blu-Ray version it was cheaper then the HD version.
  
  
  QUOTE:
  By Cman
  I don't understand why anyone would want a movie basically shot in the dark in HD? 300 was a great movie, but HD? I think that's a waste of money.
  
  How much more detail do you want? More blood? More gore? I think there are times when HD can add to a movie, and other times when its just fluff..
  
  
  What??? Higher definition is always better in light, dark, cartoons, or whatever. Darks are bad on LCD or Plasma sets no matter what the signal SD or HD otherwise HD is better for dark scenes if shot in HD, I can only guess where the real fluff is.

  8.8.2007 09:29 #11

• morguex

  To Nexgen76
  
  Who cares, I'm really tired of all this HD vs Bluray crap.
  By the time a winner is declared, there will something new on the market anyway.
  Besides the article was about 300 being highest selling HD-DvD ever, not about who was winning the "high def wars"
  
  O yeah one more thing if you compare stand alone players to stand alone players.(exclude PS3) I'm pretty sure the figures would be alot closer
  
  Peace all

  8.8.2007 13:19 #12

• Cman

  I disagree. HD is meant for more detail.
  
  With the enormous CGI embedded with "300", most of the scenes came out dark. HD will make them darker. There's not alot of "color" in this movie.
  
  You can watch "300" in 1080p or upconverted 1080i with equal enjoyment. I still don't see the need to shell out an additional 15buks for the BD/HD disc.
  
  I can understand paying extra for a BD/HD "Bourne Supremacy" or "Fantastic Four 2". I don't see it for "300". I wouldn't pay the extra for an BD/HD disc of "Batman Returns" either although I think its the best Batman to date. Same goes for "Sin City".
  
  Still a money pit for those hooked on BD/HD fluff..

  8.8.2007 15:10 #13

• Pop_Smith

  Originally posted by NexGen76: So much for a small HD market its growing by every good release.I'm curious to see how much Blu-Ray out sold HD-DVD.This is the only reason I hate this whole "war" of HD DVD and Blu-Ray, the fanboys. Too bad the link you provided doesn't give a movie-by-movie breakdown of the sales. :-(
  
  Peace

  8.8.2007 16:18 #14

• error5

  Zack Snyder made it very clear in the supplements as to why his film looks the way it is. He wanted to approach the look of the graphic novel. This is why the contrast is jacked up, the blacks are burned down, colors are muted and sepia-toned, and artificial "grain" was added by computer resulting in an overall softness and lack of detail.
  
  These may not bring out the best HD picture so I wouldn't use this particular movie to sell an HD player. However, for anyone who already has an HD DVD or BluRay player in his equipment rack there's no question that the HD or BD version is the only way to go. Thus the excellent sales numbers.
  
  BTW, from USA Today: 300 HD sales - 65% Blu-ray, 35% HD DVD
  
  http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive...ay-continu.html

  8.8.2007 17:13 #15

• wetsparks

  Double Post.

  10.8.2007 20:31 #16

• wetsparks

  Frankly, I never saw the movie in theaters, saw it at a friends house the day it came out and I was unimpressed and he has a big screen and surround sound. Don't get me wrong, nice movie, great story (there is a reason the story lasted for thousands of years), but Hollywood got it's grubby little hands on it and ruined the movie.

  10.8.2007 20:31 #17

• animefan

  This movie was pretty good, I bought the HD DVD version and am very impressed with it's picture quality. The story itself was good but by no means Classic, picture and sound speaks for itself on this release, it is an effects driven movie. As far as Blu Ray outselling HD DVD.....well, I think that will actually happen if they lower the price of their players to match HD Players. Right now any documentation that states Blu Ray is ahead can only be labeled propaganda(I'm not bashing Blu Ray....I will buy a player the day the price drops to a reasonable amount).

  11.8.2007 07:48 #18

• borhan9

  I would like to just see what all the fuss about this movie is.

  17.8.2007 16:34 #19

• chaos_zzz

  everone should get one looks nice, anyway about the hd war blu-ray is gonna people knkow 50 is more than 30

  3.10.2007 11:46 #20