"It's a perfect DVD ... right up there with its special effects, aliens and space ships," according to Anaheim, California video retailer Jay R. Ross. The John Travolta starrer hit #2 on both the Video Business(the magazine of the Video/DVD industry) top DVD sellers list and the VideoScan DVD bestseller chart, as reported in the Hollywood Reporter. It held the same position on bestseller charts reported by other entertainment industry publications including Daily Variety and Billboard and ranked among the top sellers reported by such retailers as Tower Records and Video, Blockbuster, DVD Empire and Buy.com.

"Battlefield Earth"'s brisk DVD sales came as no surprise to retailers despite the wailing of critics.

The video sales manager for a large Anaheim record and video retailer, Jay Ross says he sold out his opening week "Battlefield Earth" DVD stock, has ordered more, and expects demand to continue at a fast clip.

"Based on what the people who have seen it are saying, I think the critics were wrong," Ross says. "The word of mouth among the young audience for this film is that it's definitely worth watching. I enjoyed the movie and John Travolta (as 'Battlefield Earth''s alien villain Terl). I bought the DVD myself. Now it's doing better than a lot of recent award-winning films out there."

With over 6,500,000 copies of the epic Hubbard sci-fi novel already sold in more than 24 languages -- and millions of other readers in 42 countries -- Jay Ross agrees that the movie he calls "a perfect DVD" for its all-out action, explosive special effects and special features has a huge existing fan public -- and that the initial reaction to the DVD version is generating excitement among them.

An executive at Vroman's, Pasadena, one of the oldest and largest independent bookstores in Southern California, concurs. "Science fiction fans in particular like to make up their own minds about things, " says Vroman's Steve Ross. "People aren't listening to the critics. The mainstream critics trashed 'Blade Runner,' for example, and it's become a classic. That's what happening to 'Battlefield Earth.'"

Steve Ross adds that the commentary among the DVD's highlight extras by "Battlefield Earth" Director Roger Christian vividly illuminates how L. Ron Hubbard's sweeping saga of alien conquest and human rebellion in the year 3000 A.D. had to be compressed in making the movie, with only one-half of the multiple award-winning book -- the biggest single science fiction novel ever published -- actually on the screen.

Though the task was a daunting one, Vroman's Ross adds, "The result is an achievement in film."

SOURCE Dateline Communications