By Natalia Ningthoujam
New Delhi, April 24 (IANS) Just a few hours after tickets for the highly anticipated Marvel Studios' film "Avengers: Infinity War" went live on April 22, the 3D Prime tickets worth Rs 515 at some of the halls here got sold out. Not just this, the overall response to ticket bookings for the star-studded film has been "extremely encouraging" across formats.
Twenty two superheroes, including Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man, Mark Ruffalo's The Hulk and Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange, and one big villain after six infinity stones -- "Avengers: Infinity War" is bringing the deadliest showdown of all time to the big screen on April 27 in India.
The off-screen Avengers army has assembled to grab the tickets to watch the epic on-screen battle.
"The response to ticket bookings for 'Avengers: Infinity War' has been extremely encouraging across formats. And while, as expected, the craze for watching the film on an IMAX screen is huge, the sales have been remarkable even for the 3D format," Ashish Saksena, Chief Operating Officer - Cinemas, BookMyShow, said in a statement to IANS.
"Given the huge anticipation around the film from fans, Disney opened the advance bookings on Sunday instead of Wednesday as is the trend and this turned out to be a rewarding decision."
Echoing this, Rajender Singh Jyala, Chief Programming Officer, INOX Leisure Limited, said the advance booking response of "Avengers: Infinity War" is "outstanding across all their multiplexes".
"We opened advance bookings on Sunday (April 22) morning and we sold over 40,000 tickets by 7 p.m., which is the highest ever for any Hollywood movie and second highest advance of all time after 'Baahubali 2'."
Devang Sampat, Director - Strategic Initiatives, Cin?polis India, told IANS: "In one day of advance booking, we sold around 50,000 tickets which is history in the making.
"We have seen an amazing response for the 3D and 4DX formats. Occupancy of 4DX and IMAX is almost 75 per cent in one day, according to advance booking, which we have never seen before."
Talking about cities, Yogesh Raizada, Vice President, Wave Cinemas, told IANS: "Delhi/NCR has got an encouraging number of bookings. Being a metro city, it has more English-speaking gentry with lots of superhero fan following."
"'Avengers: Infinity War' is one of the most awaited and anticipated Avenger movie. Since it's a long weekend followed by Monday which is a Buddha Purnima and the next day is May Day, we are expecting to see an overwhelming opening. Kids are done with their exams and as they are the biggest target audience for this genre, we are expecting a huge crowd," he added.
An excited Delhi-based Sameeran Chetia, 27, shared: "We booked the tickets for a show at PVR Sangam for Saturday. We required six tickets for Friday, but most of the tickets were already sold out. So, we had to book for the first show on Saturday."
"I am a fan of Captain America as he is the first avenger. I have heard rumours about Captain America dying. I hope it's not true," he added.
Will Captain America, who has already given up his shield, die or is it Iron Man's turn to bid adieu to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Many questions and spoilers have been floating around online.
But the makers of the film, helmed by the Russo brothers -- Anthony and Joe -- are doing everything in their power to stop its story from getting leaked. The directors even prevented the cast from reading the entire script. In fact, fake pages were handed out to some of them.
Marvel Studios' 10th anniversary will begin with the release of "Avengers: Infinity War", and everyone is excited to celebrate it.
"Time and again we have seen movies create history at the box office, but we have never before witnessed a phenomenon as such when a Hollywood film created such a frenzy with its advance ticket sales. It's a testament of Marvel's ever-expanding fan base, and the extraordinary buzz around the release of 'Avengers: Infinity War'," Kamal Gianchandani, CEO, PVR Ltd, said.
"Avengers: Infinity War" is set to hit 2,000 Indian screens in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on April 27.
(Natalia Ningthoujam can be contacted at natalia.n@ians.in)
