The Dark Knight Rises: Is a midnight screening ticket really worth $150?

The endlessly hyped conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy opens in just a few weeks, and opportunistic scalpers are seizing on the excitement

Avid fans took heed of The Dark Knight Rises Facebook countdown by seizing on the opportunity to buy advance tickets, inspiring scalpers to re-sell the prized passes at an inflated price.
(Image credit: Facebook/The Dark Knight Rises)

Tickets for midnight screenings of Christopher Nolan's hoopla-generating Batman flick The Dark Knight Rises, which hits theaters July 20, went on sale last week, and unsurprisingly, the coveted passes sold out quickly at many locations. But late-to-the-game fans of the Caped Crusader aren't completely out of luck: A handful of opportunistic scalpers are hocking extra passes on websites like eBay and Craigslist, with the top price hovering around the $150 mark. (Tickets to the "Dark Knight Trilogy" marathon, which will screen all three of Nolan's Batman films successively, are even more expensive.) Is it worth shelling out this much cash just to be among the first fans to see The Dark Knight Rises?

No way: "This is ridiculous," says Mike Sampson at Screen Crush. No one should spend more than $20 on a Dark Knight Rises ticket — and that's assuming that person lives in a major city and is planning to see the film in IMAX. The film's opening is still a month away; even if midnight screenings are sold out, there are still plenty of tickets available for plenty of other showings during premiere weekend. In New York, for instance, there are still 3:00 am tickets available. "An extra $80-$100 seems a little silly just to see a movie three hours earlier."

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