Twentieth Century Fox's X-Men: The Last Stand shredded previous Memorial Day box office records with an estimated four-day total of $120 million.  With a box office take of $96.6 million Shrek 2 had held the Memorial Day weekend mark since 2004. 

Each film in the X-Men series has opened stronger than the previous entry.  The first X-Men film earned $54.5 million in its opening frame, while X2: X-Men United grabbed $85.6 million in its debut compared with X-Men: The Last Stand's three-day total of $103.1 million. 

X2 actually opened in more theaters than the third film in the series, but this statistic is somewhat misleading since, in this age of the multiplex the number of theaters is not necessarily the most important statistic--X-Men: The Last Stand was shown on 1,500 more screens than its predecessor. 

With The Da Vinci Code pulling in an estimated $43 million and the animated, comic strip-based Over the Hedge earning $35.3 million the top 12 films grossed a full five percent more than 2005's top Memorial Day movies and finally got Hollywood's 2006 summer box office season off the snide.  The Da Vinci Code actually dropped some 56% over the 3-day weekend, while Over the Hedge only dropped 30% from its opening frame.

X-Men: The Last Stand logged the second biggest opening day of all time with a Friday total of $45.5 million, which only trailed Star Wars Episode III's  $50 million.  X3's box office take declined 29% on Saturday indicating the pent-up demand of the film's fans. 

According to Fox audiences for X3 were about 50% male and 50% under 25, which indicates the broad appeal of the X-Men film franchise. 

With such a strong opening performance from the third X-Men film it would appear that a fourth X-movie would be a 'no-brainer,' but formidable obstacles actually make an X4 unlikely -- at least with the same cast (see 'The X-Men's Last Stand?').  Although Fox is planning a Wolverine feature with Hugh Jackman, escalating salaries for the stars of the X-Men film franchise (added to the costs of the special effects) made X3 a very expensive film to produce, with costs estimated at between $165 and $210 million. While the opening of X-Men: The Last Stand indicates that the franchise has lost none of potent appeal, it should be noted that the previous 2 X-movies earned 35 and 40% of their box office totals during their opening weekend, which would indicate that in a best case scenario X3 would end up around $300 million making it the highest grossing film in the series, because of its inflated cost, it won't necessarily be the most profitable.

Meanwhile down at #17 on the weekend chart, Dan Clowes and Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential is now showing in only 158 theaters and earned an estimated $283K over the four-day weekend.  It should finish its run with about $3.5 million at the domestic box office -- but with its strong reviews and its appeal to an older, hip audience, ASC just might turn out to be a strong performer on home video.