If you don’t already have your opening weekend tickets, you might just be out of luck.
Sex and the City 2 exploded onto movie screens Thursday, but for those who waited too long to buy their tickets online – or dared to show up to buy tickets in person at the theater – they were in for an unfortunate surprise: Many screenings were already sold out.
As Carrie herself would advise: You have to make reservations.
Yes, it turns out that Prince of Persia has nothing on Carrie of the Upper East. Two big blockbusters are opening this weekend, but only one of the duo has been selling like crazy online for weeks now.
As of noon Tuesday, MovieTickets.com reported 305 sellouts for SATC2 across the country. That’s 300 sellouts, 48 hours ahead of opening day. Most people don’t even start looking for tickets until the day of.
All week – even as the stars strutted the red carpet for the film’s premiere – sites like MovieTickets were reporting Sex and the City 2 as producing 60, 70 or even 80 percent of its daily business. And for several weeks now, women have been reportedly placing orders in bulk – at a rate of six to ten tickets at a time.
This is the event film of the year for the fangirls, and it seems on track to not only match the business of the first big-screen shopping spree (to the tune of $152 million), but to surpass it. Just imagine if they had made it in 3D!
So yes, weekend number one will be a bonanza, but the real test will come in week number two, when the word of mouth generated by all these pre-sales will start to have a real impact. The reviews have already been lackluster – TIME’s Mary Pols said the movie left the series’ fans behind, while Roger Ebert said the female foursome made his skin crawl – but now the real question is how will all those fans respond to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda’s middle eastern adventure?
And will we hear any talk of a trilogy?