Batman Begins belts week’s DVD competition
Thomas K. Arnold

LOS ANGELES—“Batman Begins” scored a knockout punch in its first week on home video, shooting to No. 1 on both the preliminary national sales and rental charts. The brooding Warner Bros. auctioneer, which took in nearly $205.3 million in theatres, is one of the first big summer movies to come to video — and ranks as the top-selling DVD so far this fourth quarter. Industry sources peg its sales at nearly 4 million copies in the week ended October 23.
George Romero’s “Land of the Dead” from Universal finished a distant second on VideoScan’s First Alert chart. Disney’s “Cinderella” held fast at No. 3, while the previous week’s top seller, Fox’s “Kingdom of Heaven,” slid to No. 4. On trade publication Home Media Retailing’s rental chart, “Batman Begins” also scored an easy victory, generating an estimated $11.36 million in rental revenue for the week.
“Kingdom of Heaven,” however, remained a strong No. 2, earning an additional $9.06 million to bring its two-week take to $19.1 million, or more than 40% of its box office gross. Several special-edition DVDs of older movies scored well on the sales front. Disney’s “Tarzan” debuted at No. 8 and “The Emperor’s New Groove” bowed at No. 15; Universal’s “The Big Lebowski” entered the chart at No. 16.