ContactMusic reported, X-Men: The Last Stand excelled at the box office over the weekend, earning an estimated $107 million over the first three days of the Memorial Day weekend. While most reports indicated that the figure represented the fourth biggest three-day weekend take in history, Daily Variety pointed out that it was actually the second-best Friday-Sunday opening ever, beaten only by the May 2004 debut of Spider-Man III, which took in $115 million. The trade publication noted that Shrek 2, which opened on a Wednesday, and Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, which opened on a Thursday took in $108 million during their first weekends. (The X-Men sequel could very well exceed the take of those two films if Sunday’s actual gross turns out to be higher than $25 million.) The big take surprised box-office analysts, who had expected the film to do less business than the previous X-Men movies, primarily since it had to go head-to-head against The Da Vinci Code — which opened well above expectations last weekend and had continued to show much strength during the week — and also against the animated Over the Hedge. Because of the holiday, Sony did not provide a weekend estimate for Code, but Paramount figured that Hedge’s fund amounted to $27.3 million.