Doctor Who: The Day Of The Doctor Is A Global Hit Taking $10m In 3 Days



The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor has taken more than $10m (£6m) at the box office in its first three days of being aired in cinemas across the globe.

The BBC released the The Day of the Doctor in cinemas globally on Saturday, and by Monday fans had spent $10.2m (£6.25m) to watch it.

The UK box office took £1.8m in its first three days. Where it was the third most film of the week after Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Sandra Bullock's space survival film Gravity.

The BBC have announced that in the USA the film took $4.7m on Monday night alone, selling 320,000 tickets, which made it the second biggest film of the day after Hunger Games.

In terms of average revenue per screen the BBC said it was number one in the US on Monday, with 650 cinemas airing the 75-minute anniversary edition for an average of $7,155. Hunger Games, on much wider release in 4,163 cinemas, made $2,623 per screen on average.

In Australia more than 70,000 fans visited the cinema to watch Doctor Who on Sunday.

"We organised the global cinema events to give the fans an opportunity to get together and enjoy a unique moment in Doctor Who history as one," said the BBC Worldwide chief brands officer, Amanda Hill. "It also gave those same fans who didn't have 3D TVs a chance to see the special in its biggest and most amazing form. We had no idea that there would be such a demand at the global box office. This demonstrates how huge the show remains in the UK and how far it's come internationally over the last few years."

The anniversary episode is also being screened in cinemas in countries including Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Iceland.

The Day of the Doctor also attracted the biggest ever audience on the BBC's US cable channel, BBC America, averaging 2.4 million viewers. This was despite being aired at 2.50pm on the US east coast (11.50am in California) well outside of a primetime evening viewing slot. A primetime repeat attracted a further 1.2 million viewers.

It is also faring well digitally as it has topped the chart of episodes purchased on Apple's iTunes in the US and Amazon's television chart. Based on the first day of sales alone it is set to be the most downloaded episode of 2013 for the BBC on iTunes.

Source: The Guardian

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