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See 'Man of Steel' a day early by visiting Walmart

See 'Man of Steel' a day early by visiting Walmart

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man of steel (walmart)
man of steel (walmart)

If you want to be one of the first to watch Zack Snyder’s new Superman film Man of Steel, there’s only one place you’ll be able to get tickets: Walmart. The Hollywood Reporter writes that seats will go on sale on May 18th at 8AM in more than 3,700 Walmart stores across the country for advance screenings a day ahead of the official June 14th opening. The deal appears to be the first time that a retail chain has teamed up with a film studio to sell movie tickets directly.

Walmart is hoping to use the advance ticket sales to sell pre-orders for the film’s upcoming upcoming Blu-ray and digital releases, which will include extras not available elsewhere, reports The Wall Street Journal. The tickets will also include a copy of a digital comic from Man of Steel writer David Goyer.

It hopes to use the opportunity to move extra "Man of Steel" merchandise

Over the past year, Walmart has been increasingly asserting itself in the world of digital media, offering a disc-to-digital service last year for purchasing discounted UltraViolet digital copies of the DVDs and Blu-rays that you already own. Whether it will give the company an edge against the likes of Apple and Amazon remain to be seen. Walmart won’t get a cut of ticket sales, says a Walmart exec, but it hopes to use the opportunity to move extra Man of Steel merchandise. If the experiment goes well, it's possible that we could see similar deals for other films down the road. With new release DVD and Blu-ray sales reportedly down 50 percent over the past eight years and box office receipts up six percent year-over-year, it certainly makes sense for the retail giant to try and make the most of changes in the market.