‘Hangover II’ may hit $125 million, ‘Panda 2′ $65

So here’s the benchmark — established at the start of this five day weekend.

Based on Thursday’s numbers (Midnight wed., too), “Hangover Part II” could hit $125 million at the box office.

Harry Medved over at Fandango said that “Part II” :has broken ticketing records at Fandango, garnering the top pre-sales and opening day ticket sales for any comedy in our company’s 11-year history. (Thursday, May 26, the comedy sequel’s opening day, ranked as our top-selling day of the year so far.)”

Will the movie pick up steam, or lose it over the weekend? Word of mouth could boost it or temper it. That $30 million Thursday will be hard to match, with a lot of pent-up demand spent yesterday. But by Monday, we’ll know.

Reviews won’t help.

Will millions of tweeted “Dude, you’ve GOT to see this movie” help, or “Dude, what a waste. Same as the first one” messages suppress the take?

The box office guru was pitching $98 million as the “Hangover II” mark to hit for five days. He was $10 million off on “Pirates,” which isn’t that far off the mark, considering. Box office Mojo was saying $122 million, which may seem clairvoyant by Monday afternoon.

“Kung-Fu Panda 2″ is headed towards a $65 million opening, Nikki Finke says. She never sees to get that parents aren’t taking the kids to Thursday or Friday shows, that Saturday and Sunday are the family movie going days. So that could be low.

“Pirates” will do OK for its second weekend.

But with all that box office power loaded into one weekend, we may see a Memorial Day record — depending on how many days they count as “Memorial Day Weekend” this year — $200-250 million?