According to Fandango, the leading online ticketing destination, many midnight shows on Thursday July 17th are already sold out, so they've added these extra early screenings.
More than 1,500 late-night showtimes of the movie have been scheduled for the film's pre-opening on Thursday night (Friday morning), July 17-18, at Fandango.com/TheDarkKnight. An online survey of more than 3,000 "The Dark Knight" fans on Fandango.com over the holiday weekend offered the following information on the late-night surge:
* 37% of respondents plan to see the film at least once during one of the late night performances on Thursday night.
* 38% say that they intend to take off a few hours or the entire day from work on Friday as a result of seeing the movie the night before.
* 60% of these moviegoers are male.
* 71% are under the age of 35.
* 39% plan to see the film in IMAX(R).
* 92% expect that the Academy will recognize Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker with a posthumous Oscar(R) nomination next year.
For Fandango, "The Dark Knight" is poised to be the year's top advance ticket-seller in wide release, outpacing "Iron Man," "Indiana Jones 4" and "Sex and the City" at the same point in those films' sales cycles.