There were 3 copies at my local Best Buy up here in Canada yesterday when I picked up my copy. They had 2 in the 52xxx range and the one I got was 1152, just had to be in a "lowest number geek fit" at the time of purchase :) Not that it will mean anything. Great movie and the job Blue Underground did was very impressive.

There were zero at the two BBs near me. :(

I suppose I could get it from DDD if the mood strikes.

Didn't see any of the SE's at my local BB either. Plenty of the single-disc ones though.

My local Best Buy had about 15-20 copies of the 2 disc, 5-7 copies of the single disc.

I better buy a spare, for this could do well at ebays in a few month, what do you think? (;)

I don't think it will do that well on ebay. There really isn't a hardcore following for The Final Countdown, Is there?. I could understand it for Disney tins and films with a strong cult following (i.e.: Army of Darkness), but who knows, this may appeal to the completist dvd collector that missed the boat and must have the best version available.

maybe not where you are standing...but it's hardcore where I'm at...and I'm in the sticks. if and when the limited release is no longer found on shelves or available for order, you can bet yer ass people will flock to ebay and sell souls to get it.

I'm not sure the 2 disc of Thre Final Countdown will be a collector's item any time soon. 100,000 pressing is quite a lot for a film that doesn't have a huge cult audience. Look at Blue Underground's DVD for SNUFF. Only 10,000 made and I still see them in stores (as well as Ebay, selling for $20.00). Even the Mondo Cane box has been as cheap as $80.00 at film conventions.

On the contrary, The Final Countdown has quite a large following. The two-disc LE immediately entered Amazon's top 50 sellers as soon as it went up for preorders. Even if they sell well in preorders, more-obscure titles usually drop in sales on Amazon after being released. But The Final Countdown LE acually went up and is now in the top 20 at Amazon. In addition the single-disc widescreen DVD is right around No. 100. This not just Amazon. Check other online retailers. The LE is No. 6 at DVD Empire, for example.

Another clue to the film's pent-up popularity is that tiny Blue Underground released three separate versions. It wouldn't have done that if the movie wasn't popular. Keep in mind that the movie has largely been unavailable on home video until now.

I asked Blue Underground founder Bill Lustig if this was a big seller for the company. He replied: "The Final Countdown is our biggest seller without a close second."

Yeah, if history is any guide, don't expect these to be rare or valuable any time soon. Look at other sets with similar numbers (Manhunter comes to mind)... you'll still be able to find this on shelves in a year with no problem.

I don't think it will be worth much on Ebay for a good long time (except if you got lucky with a naive buyer).

I had never gotten the limited edition Wicker Man until last month when I decided I MUST have it (surely I am not the only one to have a case of the "must-haves" long after a release) and I had no trouble securing one. It was limited to 100,000 also. However, Final Countdown may have a bigger following.

BTW, My FC was #44XXX from ddd.

It's actually quite a coup for a small indy producer like Blue Underground to get the rights to release a cult film like this one. Good stuff.

Of course, niche titles like these are considered successes if they sell upwards of 20,000 units. But the price is right on this one ($17 for the 2-disc LE at several online retailers) and it's been selling well. Good on Blue Underground. This is the first BU title that I've bought, but I hope they release some more films that I'd love to see on DVD but aren't available yet.

BU actually bought the home-video rights from Mel Gibson's Icon Productions, which picked up The Final Countdown as a tag-along title when it bought back the rights to its earlier films from a British film agency. Gibson granted the rights to the film on the condition that BU sort out the film's twisted North American home-video situation.

BU's Bill Lustig: "The adventure of clearing the rights is an incredible story involving the FBI, forged documents, born-again Christians and death threats."

would that be Mel Gibson? :)

WOW. Is the story of the film's rights on the DVD? That sounds like a better story than the film!

For that price I picked up an extra for myself. With my luck if I didn't, someone would borrow it and lose it or something. Then they won't be found for under $50. Then I'll be looking at one of your ebay auctions.

I "scored" the only one at any of the Best Buys near me last week in the 77XXX range. I stopped by one of the BBs again this weekend only to find another 20 copies sitting on the shelf mostly in the 30XXXs and two at 99952 and 99953. I think 100,000 copies of this movie are more than it sounds like.

I was surprised that, to my recollection, I had never seen nor heard of this movie. It wasn't half bad.

There's no shortage of naive buyers at ebay, that's for sure:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...6&category=617

Unbelievable. First of all, he's paying too much already. Secondly, it's a promo copy (the line drawn through the UPC code) without the cool lenticular cover. I almost want to email the highest bidder and tell him he can get it for $17. Maybe I could sell him my extra copy of the limited edition Halloween that came out a few years ago for $100+ :eyebrow: -rolleyes-

I couldn't find one at any of my local Best Buys or Circuit Citys, so I placed an order online at BestBuy.com, which shipped on Friday.

I checked 4 stores in the north and northwest Chicago suburbs.

Well, up here in Toronto, Canada I got #025xxx.
Cool stuff, I've been waiting a long time for this to be properly released and there were only two on the shelf...one now!

Go to DeepDiscountDVD's storefront if you are near Itasca Il..They plenty of the reg and limited edition ones in stock. I picked up the regular for 11 bucks..

You may be correct. However, I would point out that Snuff was the worst release by Blue Underground. In an attempt to be clever they put out a disc without either a menu or chapter stops. It was completely barebones and very poorly advertised in a stupid attempt to be funny by pretending it was a true bootleg release. The result is that for a limited edition of 10,000 copies, it is still very easy to obtain. On the other hand, the Mondo Cane Collection was absurdly overpriced and guaranteed to only sell to fools like me. The films are great, mind you, just overpriced. Thus, it is still widely available in stores.
Now, The Final Countdown is the most mainstream release put out by Blue Underground and the limited edition has great extras. I don't think it will be easy to find in a year.

The Final Countdown LE debuted at No. 9 on Video Business' weekly chart of the top-selling DVDs. It should blow through 100,000 copies quite quickly with that kind of showing.

It sold over 40,000 units in the first week - a great showing for such a niche title, but still fewer than half of the extant LEs out there.

I wouldn't expect this one to be around a few months from now, though.

Do you know what percentage of the sales were the limited editions?

No, since the regular edition and the full frame regular edition aren't even in the top 50 this week.

The list specifically lists the LE. It will list different versions if they have different UPC numbers (for instance, both the Widescreen and FF Schindler's List show up).

Well, that is great news. I hope Blue Underground makes a bundle on this.

I went to my local BB and CC yesterday and only CC had one copy left. Now they have none. ;)

well MANHUNTER limited edition was like 100,000 which was far more popular than FINAL COUNTDOWN, especisally on heel of HANNIBAL and SILENCE OF LAMBS, and you can still buy those everywhere, so I am sure it will still be around.

An oddball thought... for any of these "numbered" DVD releases, are there registry web sites for them? Kinda pointless, but could be interesting nonetheless.

Manhunter was not more popular than The Final Countdown. Most people have never heard of Manhunter. It was not a mainstream film and did not do well at the box office in part due to its obscure and vague title. I would agree that on this board Manhunter is more popular, but this board is not the world.

And "The Final Countdown" is popular and well-known? Not in the universe that I live in.

Kirk Douglas is popular and very well known in the real world. His presence will sell the film to many. That is reality. Deal with it.

To further illustrate my point, the following figures are the total box office for both films as listed by Box Office Mojo:

The Final Countdown : $16,647,800.00
Manhunter : $ 8,620,929.00

William Petersen just called and said you better not be crossing any streets in front of him for a while...:)

I am not worried. Dennis Farina has my back.

But this is a DVD forum, and we're discussing DVDs.

I'm not sure why this has to be a tit for tat over which movie was more popular. Both The Final Countdown and Manhunter were unexpected hits on DVD for the small companies that produced them. Here are some published reports about the Manhunter DVD:

This just shows that Manhunter also was a surprise when it came out. The problem then was that the sales of its limited edition weren't counted separately, as far as I can find; the two releases were lumped together. As far as its limited edition still being available "everywhere," you can't buy it new on Amazon, a good sign of a disc's availability from the manufacturer and distributors, so it is indeed limited.

The Final Countdown is impressive because its more-expensive two-disc set is what has performed so tremendously.

Yes, but the Manhunter LE was also around $30 retail, whereas the Final Countdown was only $16.99 at Best Buy the week of release.

you could always just skip ahead about 5 years...when all dvds may be oop. everything is limited.:D