FANDANGO REPORTS NEAR RECORD TICKET DEMAND FOR DIVERGENT

It doesn’t open until March 21, but tickets for Divergent are already the most in-demand item on Fandango, the online ticket-seller. In fact, Fandago said on Wednesday, the movie outselling its closest rival by nearly five to one and represents half of all sales on the site. All signs appear to be indicating that Divergent will become the next big blockbuster for Lionsgate and launch a new franchise for the studio. On Tuesday, when tickets for the movie went on sale for the first time, sales outpaced those for first-day sales of each of the films in another big Lionsgate franchise — the Twilight series. The first film in that franchise debuted with $68 million. Some analysts are already beginning to predict that Divergent will top that.