'The Dark Knight Rises' at Midnight Thursday in Urbandale

Thursday is D-day for Theodore Bartemes -- that's D as in Dark Knight.

The 20-year-old Drake student will be starting the celebration about 5 p.m. when eight to 10 of his friends gather at his parents' Urbandale home to watch the two previous Batman movies.

From there, they'll head to the Cobblestone Theater between 8 and 9 p.m. to camp out in line, so they can get the best seats for the 12:01 a.m. showing of The Dark Knight Rises. (The film officially opens on Friday, July 20.)

Who's your favorite superhero? Tell us in the poll below.

The long-awaited epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy opens at midnight Thursday nationwide and Des Moines metro theaters have been selling advance tickets for two weeks.  in Urbandale is offering eight midnight showings; the Wynnsong in Johnston is offering two midnight showings Thursday. 

The Dark Knight Rises is generating more audience excitement than the three-highest grossing movies of the last 12 months, reported LATimes.com, in an article suggested the movie might break the $207 million opening weekend record of The Avengers in May.

"I think everyone who knows me knows that I really like Batman," said Bartemes. (If they don't, his many Batman T-shirts, the Batman sticker prominently displayed on his iMac, not to mention the Batman pajama pants, probably give him away.)

Bartemes is a comic book fan -- many of his friends aren't -- but they're excited about the sequel to The Dark Knight, he said. (Check out Iowa City Patch's video on the best Batman comic books.) 

"I think they're excited because everyone really liked The Dark Knight. They think this will do well. They like the actors. They like the director," he said.

In 2008's Dark Knight, Batman vanishes into the night, a fugitive instead of a superhero. He sacrificed everything for the greater good, but now he’s back in The Dark Knight Rises to take on a cunning cat burglar with a mysterious agenda. It only gets more complicated with the emergence of Bane, a masked terrorist whose ruthless agenda drives the caped hero out of his self-imposed exile.

Cinemark Century 20 Theaters at offers a Dark Knight marathon, where all three movies in the trilogy will be shown back to back. Tickets are limited for the showings. Batman Begins starts at 6:15 p.m., The Dark Knight begins at 9 and The Dark Knight Rises begins at 12:01 a.m.

The first two showings at other theaters in the complex are already sold out, but tickets were still available at noon Tuesday. Show times and advance online ticket prices are available here.