Colorado Batman Massacre: Three Arrests as Copycat Hysteria Spreads after Dark Knight Rises Shootings

US authorities have arrested three men for threatening behaviour linked to the Batman cinema massacre which left 12 people dead.

The men were arrested separately during or after screenings of the new Batman film The Dark Knight Rises - the film that was being screened when a masked gunman, named in court as 24-year-old James Holmes, burst into a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, and opened fire on the audience.

Michael William Borboa, 27, was arrested after his drunken behaviour caused around 50 people to evacuate a screening in Sierra Visa, Arizona, police said.

Although they would not disclose the specific nature of his offence, they confirmed that he had been arrested for displaying threatening and intimidating behaviour while intoxicated.

In Newark, California, 52-year-old Clark Tabor was arrested for an outburst in his cinema when the film was delayed. He is reported to have shouted "I should go off, like in Colorado" before asking "does anybody have a gun?" Police were called in immediately.

The third suspect, Timothy Courtois of Biddeford, Maine, was detained a day after watching the film, which is final part of the Batman trilogy. When he was stopped for speeding, he told police that he was off to shoot a former employer.

During a search of Courtois's car, police found a AK-47 assault weapon similar to that reportedly carried by Holmes, as well as four handguns, ammunition and news clippings about the Aurora shooting.

Despite the widespread tension left by the Aurora massacre, The Dark Knight Rises still brought in $160.9m over the weekend. Only two films have ever performed more strongly on their opening weekend - The Avengers, released earlier this year, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 2, in 2011.