The Phantom Menace Rules

Yes, you may well say, perhaps with good reason, that here at Empire Online we'll use any excuse to blow the Star Wars trumpet. That said, we're going to do it anyway. For those of you who swore blind that Episode I was less fun than an early morning carbon freeze, may we quickly draw your attention to the recent DVD sales. Hitting shops last week, The Phantom Menace disc sold an estimated 2.2 million copies in the US over a seven-day period, making it the fastest selling title of the year. A previous record of 2 million had been set only two week before by The Mummy Returns but was shoved face-down in the mud by the Star Wars universe's DVD debut. For all the shouts of derision and hateful polemics against a certain gormless gungan, people were still tripping over themselves to get their grubby mitts on a copy of the film. So high was the demand, in fact, that distributors feared stock levels would prove insufficient to satisfy the demand. "We're doing everything possible to insure that we are not in an out-of-stock situation at retail, but given this velocity of sales, it'll be close," a Fox spokesman told Variety. With sales still going strong, the disc may yet overtake Gladiator, title-holder of highest-selling DVD of all time. See? You love it. You know you do.