Depp will reprise his role in a third Pirates film next year

Nearly 1.5m copies of the Johnny Depp film have been sold in just one week - one in every four DVDs sold in the UK.

Demand has been so great that Disney says it has had to order another one million copies from its production facilities - in the Caribbean.

Last year's biggest-selling DVD was another Disney film, The Incredibles, which sold 1.9m copies in nine months.

The film company says that if demand for the Pirates DVD is sustained, it expects to sell more than three million copies before Christmas.

Dead Man's Chest set box office records during its cinema run earlier this year, when it became the fastest film to reach the $300m (�162m) total at the North American box office.

It is now the third-highest grossing film of all time, having taken more than $1.003bn (�536m) at the global box office.

However, it still lags behind Lord of the Rings: Return Of The Kings, which took $1.1bn (�590m) and Titanic, which sold $1.8bn (�965m) of tickets.

A third Pirates film, At World's End, is due to hit cinemas in May 2007.