Superman Returns may not have been able to move Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest from the top of the UK chart but its run at the British Film Institute's London IMAX has proven a triumph.

Superman Returns, which opened at the venue including 20 minutes of 3D scenes on the same day (July 14) as the all-2D version launched nationwide, saw the biggest opening the IMAX cinema has seen taking $111,596 (£60,300) on its first weekend, with every show sold out. The launch beat that of The Polar Express 3D in 2004.

The venue recorded the biggest result for the IMAX version of the film in Europe and the second biggest worldwide.

The cinema has continued the boom, and by July 25 more than 19,000 people had seen the film at the single London site adding a phenomenal $406,000 (£218,158) to the film's UK gross in 12 days.

"We're absolutely thrilled that yet again, the bfi London IMAX Cinema has proved to be just about the hottest destination in the world for 3D films" said Justin Johnson, bfi head of operations. "With Superman Returns, we have doubled our previous best advance bookings figures and are now well past the quarter-million-pound mark including bookings for August. Since the opening weekend, almost every show during the first week continued to sell out, and rather than keeping them away, the hot weather seems to be bringing in customers in their hundreds."

The film will play at the venue through August 24.

The success could also bode well for future live action films seeing 3D IMAX conversion. Richard Gelfond, co-CEO and co-chairman of IMAX Corp, recently told Screen International, "To some extent the Superman film is a bit of an experiment. Technically it looks stunning but how do audiences feel about it' I think if we get a positive response from audiences that this is something they really like then we'll see more of it. We're talking to David Heyman, the producer of the Harry Potter films, about doing segments of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix in 3D. If the numbers work, and people come, we will see other films having that."

For more on 3D trends, see this week's Screen International.