BOX OFFICE: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Scores An Incredible $25M In Advance Ticket Sales

The Hollywood Reporter reveals that The Dark Knight Rises has now earned a whopping $25 million in advance ticket sales; one of the highest figures of all-time. With analysts (and at this point, common sense) indicating that it will surpass The Dark Knight's $158.4 million to earn the accolade of being the highest opening for a 2D film, the question now is exactly how much it will end up making in total. With predictions of between $185 million and $195 million, Warner Bros. themselves are estimating a far more conservative $170 million, pointing out that, "Anything above that is going into unknown territory." To put it into context for you, Marvel's The Avengers currently has the highest opening ever at the North American box office with $207.4 million, although $35 million of that came from the higher 3D ticket prices. Regardless, the film will have the widest IMAX release of all-time at 330 theaters, meaning that it will easily surpass the record-breaking $15.3 million earned by The Avengers. Meanwhile, the following press release was issued by London's BFI IMAX earlier today.

London’s BFI IMAX cinema announces today that it has now sold 62,300 tickets for The Dark Knight Rises – The IMAX Experience, grossing £1,001,300, two days ahead of the film’s opening this Friday 20 July. Since tickets went on sale five weeks ago, thousands of Batman fans have been snapping them up to ensure they see the film in the best possible way – on Britain’s biggest screen.

The figures for both the advance box office gross and the number of tickets sold have beaten the cinema’s previous best-ever advance sales, which were for Avatar in December 2009 (£607,000 sales for 47,000 tickets). The Dark Knight Rises also broke BFI IMAX records for highest first day sales ever (24,754 tickets grossing £409,838) and the highest first week sales ever (38,658 tickets grossing £634,013). Both these records were previously held by Prometheus. 43 shows are now sold out, including screenings for early birds at 04.25 and 04.55 this weekend.

Nolan is utilising IMAX cameras even more extensively than he did on The Dark Knight, which had marked the first time ever that a major feature film was partially shot with IMAX cameras. Over an hour of the footage from the film is in IMAX format, with the image filling the giant screen. Dennis Laws, General and Technical Manager, BFI IMAX comments: "These figures prove that seeing The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX, to truly experience Christopher Nolan’s incredible vision for the film, is an unmissable event this summer. People are even flying in from abroad especially to see the film at BFI IMAX. We want as many people as possible to be able to see it, so we’re already adding extra shows to meet the demand."

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Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ "The Dark Knight Rises" is the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The screenplay is written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan and Charles Roven, who previously teamed on “Batman Begins” and the record-breaking blockbuster "The Dark Knight." The executive producers are Benjamin Melniker, Michael E. Uslan, Kevin De La Noy and Thomas Tull, with Jordan Goldberg serving as co-producer. The film is based upon characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by Bob Kane.

STARRING:

Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman
Michael Caine as Alfred
Gary Oldman as Commissioner Jim Gordon
Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox
Tom Hardy as Bane
Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake
Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate
Josh Pence as Ra's Al Ghul

RELEASE DATE: July 20th, 2012