Record £500,000 advance ticket sales for Prometheus

The BFI Imax is set to break advance booking records after taking more than £500,000 for the new Ridley Scott movie Prometheus.

The film, in which a team of explorers discovers a clue to the origins of mankind on earth, is a kind of prequel to his huge hit Alien and premieres in London tomorrow.

The 74-year-old director and stars Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Logan Marshall-Green and Guy Pearce will walk the red carpet in Leicester Square.

The first public screenings start at midnight with more than 32,000 people having bought their tickets to see it on the giant Imax screen.

The pre-sales figures for Prometheus seem likely to beat figures achieved by films including Avatar and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.

Prometheus, which has been reported to have had a budget of up to $130 million, is set in the late 21st century as the crew of the spaceship Prometheus follow a star map to a distant world.

There they fight a battle to save the future of the human race.

Although it began development as part of the Alien franchise, the eventual script is not directly related to those films but shares “strands of Alien’s DNA” according to the director.

It was shot last year on 3D cameras in England, Iceland, Spain and Scotland and has benefited from a carefully controlled marketing campaign.