Hundreds bought tickets to Regal's Batman marathon, which ran a showing of the previous two movies
The latest movie in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, "The Dark Knight Rises," opened in theaters at midnight. The movie is expected to set box office records, which means big business for Knoxville-based Regal Entertainment.
The company employs more than 500 people locally, and 22,000 nationwide. The Batman-hype will likely be another boost to what is already one of the Knoxville area's top money-making companies.
"The summer movie season is so important to all the movie theater industry," said Russ Nunley, of Regal Marketing and Communications.
"We already had Avengers breaking records being the biggest movie of the year so far, and now 'Dark Knight' is tracking in advance ticket sales to be equal to that, or comparable to that. We can only hope."
Nunley says East Tennessee sees the direct benefit of those sales.
"Regal is a big part of the local community, pumping a lot of dollars back into here," he said.
Hundreds bought tickets to Regal's Batman marathon, which ran a showing of the previous two movies: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
Many others bought advance tickets to the midnight showing. At 11p.m. Thursday evening, 13 of the 18 theaters were sold out at the Regal Cinemas Pinnacle 18 theater in Turkey Creek.