Mamma Mia!

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Mamma Mia! – The Movie is fastest selling UK DVD of all time
Audrey Ward

Day one sales of Mamma Mia! – The Movie have beaten Titanic's record, to become the fastest selling DVD of all time in the UK.

Sales reached 1.669 million units, following its launch on November 24.

The previous record for day one DVD sales was held for 10 years by James Cameron's Titanic. It sold 1.1 million units on its first day of release in 1998 in the UK.

Mamma Mia! – The Movie also holds the record for the highest-grossing British movie of all time in the UK. It took £66,995, 244 at the UK box office. The film is a UK-US collaboration.

Eddie Cunningham, President of Universal Pictures International Entertainment said: "Mamma Mia! - The Movie has proved to be a global phenomenon. It has truly connected with audiences around the world, both on the big screen and now on DVD. Following the UK success, we are very excited about our forthcoming DVD launches around the world".

Mamma Mia! – The Movie was directed by Phyllida Lloyd and produced by Judy Craymer and Gary Goetzman. Executive producers are Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Mark Huffman. The screenplay was written by Catherine Johnson.

The musical stars Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Stellan Skarsgard and Dominic Cooper.

[Michael]

Mamma Mia! Breaks U.K. DVD Record1 January 2009 1:30 AM, PST | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

Twenty-five percent of British households now own a copy of Mamma Mia!, making it the country's biggest selling DVD of all time, the BBC reported today (Thursday), citing the Official Charts Company. Some five million copies of the musical have now been sold. It pushed out the previous No. 1 holder, The Curse of the Black Pearl, which sold 4.7 million copies.

From IMDB

What is it with Britain's taste in movies? If it was The Dark Knight or WALL-EE, then I could understand. But Mamma Mia! That was the worst movie I saw in years.

[manicsounds]

I refuse to see this movie. Not just because of the hype, but 2 hours of ABBA? Please.

[Particle Zoo]

I was forced to watch this over Xmas with my aged parents. Even copious amounts of alcohol could not dull the agony.
So thanks to Leonard Norwitz, in his Beaver review, for linking to this fantastic skewering by Anthony Lane http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/c ... inema_lane" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I literally cried with laughter reading it.

[foggy eyes]

I was forced to watch this over Xmas with my aged parents. Even copious amounts of alcohol could not dull the agony.

To my horror, two copies were exchanged in our family on Christmas day too (which, seeing as my parents don't even own a DVD player, was rather unexpected). I retreated to a separate part of the house during the inaugural screening in order to watch some Chris Welsby films (excellent palatte cleansers), and intermittently hearing the mangled strains of Abba during River Yar and Seven Days turned out to be rather odd way to spend the evening...

[HarryLong]

That Anthony Lane review is a stitch! Thank you for the link. I found this observation particularly interesting:

There are, to be fair, millions of viewers who will relish the sheer unlikelihood of all this. They will cheer on the actors’ warbled singing, and the hobbled-donkey style of dancing, precisely because it is so amateur and shambolic—because, in short, it reminds them of themselves having a good time.

In other words this movie is popular for the same reasons that George W. Bush became president ...