Will Avatar eclipse New Moon?

Despite the competition from several Oscar winning films such as the The Blind Side, the DVD and Blu-ray versions of The Twilight Saga: New  Moon continue to sell big.

In North America alone, where the film grossed about $296 million, the DVD and Blu-ray versions have grossed nearly $150 million and could reach the $200 million benchmark with the release of Eclipse, the next film and third film in the vampire saga in June. New Moon is the second film in the series.

But New Moon is in imminent danger of being eclipsed by the DVD/Blu-ray Disc/DVD combo of James Cameron's Avatar which hits the stores April 22 to mark Earth Day.

The Cameron movie, which has reached $2.7 billion mark worldwide and is still playing in over 1000 movie theatres, is arguably the most awaited of the DVD/Blu-ray discs in the last 12 months.

'New Moon was an amazing release, and it topped Twilight sales for us,' Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien told the media. '[But] people are so excited to see Avatar on their HDTVs.'

The Globe & Mail revealed recently that at director Cameron's insistence, 'the movie will have the Blu-ray and DVD discs to itself -- no bonus features. There won't even be trailers for other releases, because extras reduce the storage space available for the movie and a reduced bit rate means an inferior image.'

'I have this kind of unwritten deal with [Twentieth-Century] Fox,' Cameron said with a chuckle , 'that any time one of my movies makes more than a billion dollars we leave all the crap trailers off.'

Meanwhile, have fun with New Moon. Not exactly a favourite of the critics, the film, costing barely $60 million connected with the teenagers worldwide grossing about $700 million.

The vampire love story featuring the teen heartthrobs Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart may not make much sense to some viewers if they have not seen Twilight, the first film in the series or read the books by Stephenie Meyer.

In the new saga, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is caught in a relationship with her vampire beau Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and werewolf pal Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Life becomes even more complicated when a secret Jacob has been keeping to himself beginning unravelling.

One of the biggest surprise monster hits in recent times, New Moon received mostly negative reviews.

'The werewolves have it all over the blood-suckers in The Twilight Saga: New Moon,' wrote USA Today .'When these oversize, hirsute creatures burst onto the screen, they inject life into a rather inert story.'

But audiences worldwide embraced the film spontaneously, with many viewers seeing it many times on the big screen.

Extras -- The Blu-ray edition with its sharper images is a must for vampire loving movie fans. Director Chris Weitz and editor Peter Lambert discuss the technical aspects of the movie. Though filled with movie jargon, the discussion is made more accessible when Weitz now and then discusses in lay person's language how the film was shot. There's also an hour-long documentary on the making of the film; the videos of songs from the soundtrack also add to the attractiveness of the package. Some versions sold by big retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target also have a preview of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse