Teenage girls in Blenheim are buying up tickets to the third instalment of the vampire epic Twilight, even if they won't always own up to liking the smash hit story.
Twilight: Eclipse opens at the cinema at 10am on July 1.
Top Town Cinemas manager Duncan Mackenzie said more than 100 tickets had already been sold, mostly to Friday night screenings and mostly to "girls in [Marlborough] Girls' College uniforms".
The young-adult vampire-romance novel by Stephenie Meyer has created a fan base of teenagers around the world not seen since the Harry Potter series.
Fans are often referred to as Twi-Hards. Robert Pattison, who plays vampire Edward Cullen, is the pin-up boy of a generation.
Blenheim teenagers Vicky Mack, 16, and Kearsley Cranston, 17, said they were excited about the film, but said some people were reluctant to show their enthusiasm for it.
"It's one of those things you pretend you don't like, but you secretly do," Vicky said.
Kearsley said there were "different levels of obsession" among fans.
Bookworld co-owner Charlene Scott said sales of the Twilight books had not increased significantly in the lead-up to the release of the third film.
In its first four days on New Zealand screens in November last year, the second movie in the series, Twilight: New Moon, took $2.64 million, overtaking previous record-holder Lord of the Rings: Return of the King which took $2.6m in the same period.
Mr Mackenzie said another big movie, Toy Story 3, would also open on Thursday and he was "expecting an awful lot of popcorn to be consumed".
Mr Mackenzie is considering holding a movie marathon on Wednesday night, running the first two films in the Twilight saga leading up to the midnight release of Eclipse on July 1.
However, parents may not like their children arriving home at 3am after the movie on a school night, and it would not be the same to hold the event on Friday or Saturday, he said.
He would decide on Monday if the marathon would go ahead.
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