“AVATAR” SETS RECORD ON FIRST DAY OF HOME-VIDEO RELEASE

Earth Day turned out to be Pandora Day at retail stores on Thursday as consumers snatched up 4 million copies of Avatar, 1.5 million of them on Blu-ray, a record. The previous Blu-ray record was held by The Dark Knight, with 600,000 copies. While some analysts had wondered whether home video sales of the movie would take off without a 3D element, reviewers on Thursday praised the overall look of the film on the small screen, several using the term “gorgeous” to describe it. In Britain’s Guardian newspaper, critic Gordon Mackie wrote that the DVD release “still feels like an event without that third dimension. It’s very much a James Cameron movie, for better and worse. … Its visual splendors are many. But Cameron movies come with his own dialogue so it’s only the visuals that stay with you, and you sometimes feel bludgeoned with his none-too-original green, antiwar message writ large.”