"The things we do for love," is how a Marvel fan reacted when he managed to book a 1.40am show for Avengers: Endgame. It might seem odd to quote Game of Thrones in the Avengers context, but such is the frenzy that fans will watch any show they can over the weekend -- whether at 1.40am or 6am -- even if it means spending big bucks.
And still no tickets are available. To accommodate the demand for the last of the Avengers series, which releases today, some theatres are running shows 24X7.
"It is the biggest craze we have seen for a Hollywood film... The demand is ferocious... As far as IMAX is concerned, it is unprecedented. This is the first time a film is sold out all days of the first week even before a single show has played out. Almost the entire week is sold out," said Kamal Gianchandani, CEO, PVR Pictures.
"We have added shows as early as 6.30-7am, which we typically do for Hindi films and big regional films. Almost 70% of the PVR chain across the country is allocated to Avengers: Endgame... The demand is universally good in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu," Gianchandani added.
Movie ticket booking site BookMyShow said the film has sold over 2.5 million tickets in advance booking across the country, a record for a Hollywood movie in India. The record for the highest opening for a Hollywood movie in India is held by Avengers: Infinity War, which earned Rs 40 crore on the opening day.
Read: BookMyShow Sells 25 Lakh Avengers Endgame Tickets in Record Advance Sales
Rajender Singh, chief programming officer, INOX Leisure Ltd, said the response for advance booking has been phenomenal in both metro cities as well as second and three tier cities, where the dubbed version of the film will be screened.
"It has broken all records as far as the advance booking of any film is concerned. No Indian film has witnessed this kind of craze. We opened the advance booking last Sunday and the shows are full till Tuesday. We have sold out close to eight lakh tickets, which is huge. The closest Indian film that comes to this is Baahubali 2, we had sold tickets 4.5-5 lakh tickets," Singh told PTI.
He said INOX, which has 578 screens across India, is running shows from Friday as early as 6am in some theatres. In metro cities, they will be running shows 24x7 for the first two days.
Rahul Kadbet, vice president, Programming, Carnival Cinemas, said the chain has late night shows at 1.25am and 2.15am shows in Pune over the weekend and even a a 3.20am show in Mumbai.
The mad rush for the tickets has already inspired various memes in social media, with one showing a crowd rushing towards a mall to get their hands on tickets.
Avengers: Endgame, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, is a culmination of 22 storylines from the Marvel stable. In the film, the remaining superheroes gather to avenge their fallen comrades after super villain Thanos wiped out half of the universe's population with a finger snap in Infinity War.
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