RIGHT FARE STILL DRAWS CROWDS TO BOX OFFICE.

Byline: GREG HERNANDEZ Staff Writer

The summer movie season is only a month old but already a few trends are clear: moviegoers will still turn out in droves to see movies they think will be appealing -- this weekend's ``X-Men: The Last Stand'' debut is an example -- but largely ignore other titles no matter how heavily hyped, like the fast-sinking ``Poseidon.''

``Just give them what they want to see,'' said 20th Century Fox Distribution President Bruce Snyder, whose studio released ``X-Men'' as well as the Lindsay Lohan flop ``Just My Luck.''

According to final figures released Tuesday, ``X-Men'' grossed a whopping $122.9 million over the Memorial Day weekend, nearly $3 million more than original studio estimates and a record for that holiday period.

The ticket sales for ``X-Men'' led the movie industry to the second-biggest Memorial Day weekend in history behind only 2004, which was a record year overall in terms of ticket revenue.

The total was helped by the second weekend of ``The Da Vinci Code,'' which added $42 million to the pot and has grossed $144.9 million during its first 11 days in theaters. Also doing robust business was the animated comedy ``Over the Hedge,'' which had a four-day gross of $35.3 million for a two-week total of $84.7 million.

When ``Poseidon'' opened disastrously and ``Mission: Impossible III'' kicked off the summer season with a far smaller domestic gross than expected, there was concern that the industry was in for a repeat of last summer. Last year, weekend attendance fell so far behind 2004 levels that there was a widespread feeling that movie theaters were permanently on the decline because of high ticket prices and elaborate home movie theaters, among other factors.

``You can see with `Da Vinci' and `X-Men' that people want to see movies that are well marketed even if the reviews aren't absolutely outstanding,'' said Matthew Harrigan, an analyst with Janco Partners who follows the Regal Entertainment movie chain. ``It is true that people are waiting to buy DVDs more often and are resistant to higher prices, but the fact is the quality of the films last year was very poor.''

Added box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co.: ``This notion that the movie theater experience is something people aren't interested in anymore is proven to be completely false. This is a product-driven marketplace and ``X-Men'' was the perfect product.''

Harrigan believes that the upcoming Disney releases ``Cars'' (June 9) and ``The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'' (July 7) and to a lesser extent ``Superman Returns'' (June 28) are ``virtually guaranteed to do fairly decent box office.''

As a result of the stellar Memorial Day weekend results, year-to-date revenue is nearly 5 percent ahead of 2005 and less than 1 percent behind 2004. Attendance is up by 1.62 percent over last year but nearly 7 percent behind 2004 when such hits as ``Spider-Man 2,'' ``Shrek 2'' and ``The Passion of the Christ'' resulted in the single-year revenue record of $9.4 billion.

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com

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