The Dark Knight Rises takes £1m in advance bookings, sells 62,300 seats. 43 shows sold out.

London’s BFI IMAX has pre-sold 62,300 tickets for The Dark Knight Rises, grossing £1,001,300 ahead of its release on Friday [20].

The figures for the advance box office gross and number of tickets sold have beaten the cinema’s previous best, 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 (24,754 tickets grossing £409,838) and the highest first week sales (38,658 tickets grossing £634,013), records previously held by Prometheus.

43 shows are now sold out, including screenings for early birds at 04.25 and 04.55 this weekend. Tickets first went on sale five weeks ago.

Dennis Laws, general and technical manager, BFI IMAX said: “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.”

The anticipated third instalment in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy is likely to generate huge box office this weekend and has a good chance of posting the biggest opening for a non 3D film.

Some analysts are predicting that it could surpass The Avengers’ (Marvel Avengers Assemble in UK) 2012-best opening of £15.8m in the UK and $207m in the US.

However, unlike The Avengers, Nolan’s epic won’t benefit from 3D premiums or UK preview screenings.

Twitter: @andreaswiseman

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