Yet more proof of the power of movies to move books. The Golden Compass the movie hasn’t even opened yet, and Scholastic is already reporting that, “more than ten years after its original publication, The Golden Compass has hit USA Today‘s Top 50 Best Sellers list, having seen a 500% increase in sales over the last three months.” They also note that the omnibus edition of “Philip Pullman’s complete His Dark Materials trilogy—of which The Golden Compass is the first novel—has moved onto the Top 50 list as well.” The trilogy also moved back onto the “Book Sense National Best Seller List” for Children’s Fiction Series this summer, and has stayed ther for 19 weeks so far.
The book has sold more than 3.5 million copies in the US to date, and the trilogy twice as many. And with the upcoming release of New Line Cinema’s feature film version on 7 December, they can only expect more. The film’s official web site has seen about 10 million unique visitors.
I guess it’s not only the power of movies, but of movie trailers featuring armored polar bears.