By BRUCE KIRKLAND, LOS ANGELES

Christopher Nolan, who revived the Batman franchise by propelling Batman Begins and The Dark Knight into a $1.368-billion box-office phenomenon, is now a Blu-ray enthusiast.

"It's a huge step forward from standard DVD," the London-born Englishman tells Sun Media about bringing his blockbusters home on Blu-ray, the new high-definition format. The Dark Knight debuts on DVD tomorrow with 13 different options in Canada (most involving souvenir packaging and collectibles). Of those, eight are in standard DVD and five are in Blu-ray.

"Once people realize that -- that the potential is huge and that the discs you buy now will be good for 20 years -- then it will break through," Nolan said in an interview after a Q&A session for an IMAX screening of The Dark Knight.

Nolan emphasized that Blu-ray is the closest DVD gets to a theatrical experience, especially of a film with six sequences (34 minutes of screen time) photographed with IMAX cameras, a Canadian technology.

"For me, the Blu-ray thing is very exciting because I have a projector that projects the image 18 or 20 feet wide. I took over a whole wall of my garage (for his home theatre setup in L.A.) and I'm getting very close to film quality."

Blu-ray, however, still has a long way to go before pushing aside standard DVDs. Market penetration in North America was only five percent before the U.S. Thanksgiving, although Blu-ray backers reported a sales spike on the Black Friday shopping day. The forthcoming holiday season is expected to push Blu-ray further into the mainstream, despite the economic downturn. But 2009 shapes up as the breakthrough year -- if it is to happen at all.

Meanwhile, The Dark Knight is expected to be the hottest DVD of 2008, mostly on standard DVD but in some part on Blu-ray. One of the most interesting things fans will learn -- and see for themselves on the two-disc special edition DVD and on the two-disc Blu-ray -- is how Nolan shot many special-effects scenes for real, instead of resorting to CGI. That includes the spectacular transport truck flip and later the hospital demolition.

It turns out that IMAX and Blu-ray are part of the reason why, especially for the six scenes shot in IMAX. "The clarity of the image poses certain problems," Nolan explained at his Q&A.

"Physically, in terms of filming, the cameras are very large and very heavy and they're very loud. There are all kinds of difficulties with getting the kind of shots that you need.

"So there are various creative challenges that come with IMAX. Your use of visual effects has to be minimized. I'm a fan of trying to do things in-camera as much as possible anyway, but particularly when you're using the larger IMAX format."

In most action movies, the truck flip and hospital demolition would be done entirely by computer, Nolan said.

"And we were really forced to do those for real -- and I think I was happier with the result."

On the DVD, in the 18-minute documentary The Evolution of the Knight, Nolan explains other parts of the plan to make the sequel more real, even as a fantasy. That includes refinements to Batman's high-tech suit, creating a lighter, more flexible and better functioning costume for Christian Bale.

"What you see is what you get. There are scenes where we show much more of Batman than we did in the first film. And the suit looks absolutely beautiful like that because it looks like what it is: A real thing that you can actually wear that's not pretending to be something else."

Another exciting extra is a show-and-tell on the Batpod. It started as Nolan's suggestion that he wanted "an anti-aircraft gun on wheels." It evolved into a sophisticated but cumbersome, real motorcycle with enormous wheels that only three people mastered for the action scenes. Loads of trouble -- but audiences loved it.

Even without a Heath Ledger tribute -- vetoed because Nolan wanted to avoid exploiting the death of the actor who played The Joker with Oscar-calibre panache -- the DVDs bonus materials do their job. They illuminate the darkest corners of one of the most popular films in Hollywood history.

Gone.