‘Star Trek’ Advance Ticket Sales Crash IMAX Website

People want their "Star Trek." And they want it BIG.

"Star Trek Into Darkness," director J.J. Abrams' sequel to his much-beloved 2009 reboot of the long-running sci-fi franchise, has been voted the second most anticipated movie of the summer, according to a Fandango poll (the first being, of course, "Iron Man 3"). The film will make its UK debut on May 9, a full six days before the U.S. IMAX release, and advance tickets are now available for purchase.

Well, they were, anyway -- until overwhelming demand crashed the IMAX website, kind of like the way the Enterprise crashes into San Francisco Bay.

Advance tickets for UK IMAX screenings went on sale on Tuesday, April 9, and the IMAX site soon went offline due to having over ten times more traffic than usual. You'd think the IMAX webmasters would've learned something from last summer's "The Dark Knight Rises," which inspired an enormous increase in traffic when advance tickets went on sale that caused the Sydney and Melbourne sites to crash. But no -- Scotty gave it all she's got and the UK site went dark.

"Due to overwhelming demand for Star Trek IMAX online booking is currently down," tweeted the British Film Institute (BFI). "We're doing all we can to rectify. Do bear with us."

Even Paramount Pictures UK stepped in to try to contain the crisis:

"To book @BFI @IMAX tickets for #StarTrek #IntoDarkness call 0330 333 7878, while their online booking is down due to overwhelming demand."

The site has since been rebooted and ticket sales have re-commenced.

Abrams and Paramount have been criticized for taking four years to get a new "Star Trek" movie into theaters following the enormous success of the 2009 film, which grossed over $385 million in worldwide box office. It appears that audience enthusiasm hasn't diminished at all in that length of time, and in fact seems to have increased -- there's talk that "Star Trek Into Darkness" could surpass its predecessor by a light year and go on to make over $1 billion worldwide. Audience interest has also increased due to Abrams being announced as the director of the upcoming "Star Wars: Episode VII."

"Star Trek Into Darkness" will open in IMAX in the U.S. on May 15, with advance tickets now on sale. Try not to crash any sites, would ya?

See the teaser for "Star Trek Into Darkness":