The forbidden romance between a teen and a vampire will reach fever pitch this weekend with the highly anticipated DVD release of Twilight, which is already breaking pre-sale records for distributor E1 Entertainment.

‘This is huge by a large margin,’ says Kimberly Clark, VP of marketing for filmed entertainment at E1, pointing out that Twilight has already surpassed monster titles like The Dark Knight in advance DVD sales.

Retailers such as HMV Canada confirmed the buying frenzy around the title, which is based on the teen novel by Stephenie Meyer, and stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson as the star-crossed lovers. The film made $370 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

‘This is by far HMV Canada’s biggest ever pre-order result, far surpassing pre-orders we received for any other CD/DVD/video game in our history,’ the retailer said Thursday in a statement to Playback Daily.

Both HMV and E1 declined to release any numbers, however.

DVDs usually come out on Tuesdays. Twilight‘s unusual Saturday release — led by U.S. distributor Summit Entertainment, and supported by midnight events at hundreds of retailers across Canada — is a testament to its unequaled popularity with tweens and, in some cases, their moms.

‘In order to satisfy that tween audience it wouldn’t be fair to have them out so late on a school night, so it made sense to do it on a Saturday. We want the parent community to embrace the product as well,’ explains Clark, who compares the hype surrounding Twilight to that of the Harry Potter franchise, which also staged midnight events for many of its titles to meet demand.

Clark says the success of the title is based on a ‘lack of good, viable entertainment options’ for that demographic.

While E1 has benefited from spillover of the U.S marketing campaign, mostly through print media, the Toronto company invested significantly in its own broadcast and online initiatives, according to Clark.

E1 targeted mainstream websites such as Yahoo and MSN, plus niche sites such as the tween-aimed Vervegirl and the genre magazine Rue Morgue, which caters to horror fans.

‘We tailored our communication to the specific audience,’ says Clark, adding that for Vervegirl, the campaign played up the prom element, while it focused more on the gore angle, such as the fight between vampires Edward and James, for Rue Morgue.

The two-disc DVD includes deleted scenes, director’s commentary and interviews with the main actors. E1’s London office will handle the Twilight DVD release in the U.K., where E1 also owns the rights. It will be released there on April 6.