Daily Variety reports today that both Cast Away and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon have set new sales benchmarks for their respective studios.

First-week DVD sales of Crouching Tiger were the highest ever for Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, generating almost $30 million on over 1.5 million units, according to Video Business. It's the biggest first week total for 2001 and the second biggest week 1 total ever, right behind Dreamworks' Gladiator.

Fox's Cast Away may be heading even higher, with an estimated 1.1 million units sold in the first 48 hours after its release Tuesday, generating about $25 million in retail.

That officially makes it the fastest-selling Tom Hanks DVD and the fastest-selling DVD from Fox Home Entertainment (it took the combined power of the X-Men one whole week to sell 1 million copies last fall).

Here are some more numbers to consider: both studios shipped in excess of 2.5 million units to stores; 60% of Crouching Tiger units shipped were sold to consumers in the first week, 23% on the first day; 40% of the available Cast Away DVDs were sold in the first 48 hours.