BOX OFFICE BUZZ OGRE SETS HIS SIGHTS ON SPIDEY.

Byline: Greg Hernandez

Move over, Spidey! A big ogre named Shrek is moving into movie theaters today, and he's never played second fiddle to anyone at the box office.

While I seriously doubt "Shrek the Third" can achieve an opening weekend that tops the record $151 million "Spider-Man 3" managed to ring up just two weeks ago, the third installment of the franchise is a shoo-in to cross the $100 million mark by day three.

With a running time of 1 hour and 21 minutes, "Shrek" is a full hour shorter than the latest Spidey film and can cram in more showings in a single day. But the web-slinger had all those midnight showings and an unprecedented number of some 11,000 screens, which were key to being able to set the weekend record, along with a slew of other benchmarks.

Even if "Shrek the Third" does fall short of setting an opening weekend record, it is still likely to outgross "Spider-Man 3" over the long run.

Consider this: "Shrek 2" grossed $441.2 million domestically in 2004 (third all-time) after an opening weekend of $108 million. The first "Shrek" opened to $42.3 million and went on to gross $267.6 million.

"Spider-Man" opened to a then-record $114.8 million in 2002 and took in $403.7 million (seventh all-time), while "Spider-Man 2" had an $88.1 million opening and finished its run at $373.58 domestically.

"Shrek the Third" has only a week to dominate with "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" out May 25.

MOVIE MONEY: Looking for a "free" movie ticket? All ya gotta do is buy a DVD with "movie money" enclosed. Wondering how? If you buy either of the first two "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies or any number of other Disney DVDs this week at Best Buy, you get a movie certificate to get into "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." In Universal Home Video's new, souped-up, unrated DVD of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," there's a movie pass to see Universal's summer comedy "Knocked Up." Beware: The movie passes usually expire two to three weeks after the movie is released in theaters.

MOVIE A LA MODE: The critically acclaimed "Waitress" isn't going into semiwide release (400-500 locations) until Memorial Day weekend. Fox Searchlight has been trying to build word-of-mouth by slowly rolling out the movie about a young woman (Keri Russell) who bakes pies as a way to cope with her unhappy life. And if word-of-mouth isn't enough, how 'bout pie-in-mouth? On Mother's Day, moviegoers at some showings were treated to an actual piece of pie.

All I gotta say is ... I love pie.

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