Opening for midnight showings at 1,783 locations Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class earned a respectable $3.37 million, a slightly better performance than Thor, which brought in $3.25 million from 1,800 locations. However the most recent X-Men film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine earned $5 million from middle of the night showings at 2,000 locations in 2009, and the new X-Men film is well behind the number one midnight opener of 2011, The Hangover Part II, which brought in $10.4 million for its midnight showings last week.

X-Men: First Class opened today at 3,641 locations, a significantly lower number than X-Men Origins: Wolverine’s 4,099, but roughly similar to X2: X-Men United’s 3,741, and X-Men: The Last Stand’s 3,690.  Projections for how X-Men: First Class will fare over the weekend are all over the map, ranging from the studio’s deliberately modest projection of $54 million to as high as $89 million, which is roughly on par with the $85.1 X-Men Origins: Wolverine earned in 2009. That represented nearly half of the Wolverine movie’s finally domestic tally, an indication of just how disappointing audiences  and the general X-Men fan base found that film. First Class may not open as strongly, but its final tally should eclipse that of the Wolverine flick, since the new X-Men film has gotten solid notices from most comic fan Websites.

Even more than Thor, which earned an 80% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, X-Men: First Class has earned critical plaudits as it has rung up a seriously strong 87% positive rating with the critics. Will critical praise make up for the fact that the well known and extremely popular Wolverine character isn’t in X-Men: First Class?  Will The Hangover Part II suffer the usual second week tumble experienced by an eagerly awaited sequel, or will the “wolf pack” continue to pull in large numbers of the 18-25 male demographic that might otherwise be going to see the new X-Men movie? Check back on Sunday and find out how one of the most interesting box office derbies of the summer turns out.