'Musical' tickets selling briskly, but few sellouts

The "High School Musical" movies have broken all sorts of viewership records on television.

And the new cinematic spinoff, "High School Musical 3: Senior Year," is expected to be the No. 1 movie in the country when it opens Friday. But it's not necessarily expected to be a record-breaker.

Advance tickets for select screenings of the movie went on sale in September, and have been selling "briskly," according to Disney officials and online brokers like Fandango. But as of midweek, only a few theaters are reporting sellouts, even for tonight's midnight screenings.

Early box-office tracking now suggests that "Senior Year" may open with between $40 million to $50 million, which would be solid but not spectacular numbers. However, the film is expected to do considerably better in Utah, since it was shot in the Beehive State — mostly at Salt Lake City's East High School.

In fact, many local theater owners are expecting opening weekend screenings to fill up quickly, especially at the Megaplex 12 at The Gateway, which is the closest theater, physically, to East High.

"I think the film by far will be the biggest thing in (Salt Lake City) this week. ... I expect it to do very well since the film was shot here," said Cal Gundersen, film buyer for the Megaplex Theaters.

That chain is opening the movie on more than a dozen screens at its five theater locations between Lehi and Ogden. And according to Gundersen, The Gateway was getting close to a few opening weekend sellouts.

The Jordan Commons Megaplex location in Sandy is the top theater in Utah and one of the top 10 show houses in the country. But that theater's manager, Dick Cornell, says interest in the movie so far has only been "building slowly."

Cornell did suggest that the film's "target audience" does have school on its opening day, which may explain why the local midnight showings haven't been hot tickets so far. "I'm sure we'll still be full this weekend."

And officials at the SCERA in Orem say that tickets are still available at their theater, though they do expect "a lot of last-minute and walk-up" business there as well. SCERA spokeswoman April Berlin noted it is one of very few G-rated entertainment options for families currently. (That theater is not doing a midnight showing tonight.)

In addition to the Megaplexes, in Salt Lake City the film is booked at both the Carmike 12 and Ritz 15 Cinemas, both Century 16 locations (Sandy and South Salt Lake), the Cinemark 24 at Jordan Landing and the Westates Holladay Center.

Information on show times and locations for "High School Musical 3: Senior Year" is available at various chain theater sites, as well as movie ticket sales sites like www.fandango.com.

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E-mail: jeff@desnews.com