Tickets for the new Harry Potter film go on sale in UK cinemas on Friday, seven weeks before it opens.

Anticipation for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is high and advance sales are expected to be brisk.

The film last year had the highest advance sales - but this is darker and funnier

Warner Bros spokesman

Based on the second book in the Potter series, the film follows the hero, played by Daniel Radcliffe, in his second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Term starts well but Harry soon begins to hear voices from within the walls and Hogwarts students are mysteriously turned to stone.

Harry and his friends then set out to discover the dark force that is terrorising the school.

Kenneth Branagh stars in the new film

The first Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was released in November 2001, and by February 2002 had become the second most successful film of all time - second only to Titanic.

It took almost $1bn (�640m) around the world in box office receipts - not including further revenues from DVD and video sales.

"The film last year had the highest advance box office sales," said a spokeswoman for its studio, Warner Brothers.

All-star cast

"It broke all box office records but this is darker and funnier," he added.

The film opens in both the US and UK on 15 November and boasts an all-star cast including Richard Harris, Dame Maggie Smith, Kenneth Branagh, Robbie Coltrane and John Cleese.

Fans have already been given a sneak preview of the new movie with a short teaser shown at cinemas and on the internet earlier this year.

Draco Malfoy is still Harry Potter's rival

A longer clip was broadcast on US TV station WB, a sister network of Warner Brothers.

Among the clips from the second instalment already revealed to fans are scenes of Harry and fellow Hogwarts pupil Draco Malfoy duelling in the Great Hall.

The trailer also shows Harry and his best friends, Ron and Hermione, drinking Polyjuice Potion and Harry writing in a mysterious diary.

The new characters to be introduced in the Chamber of Secrets include Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, the new Defence Against Dark Arts teacher, played by Kenneth Branagh.