LEWISTON — Last time, they showed up a mere six hours early. To catch “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” that was not good enough.
“We were second in line. We were, like, that’s not happening again,” Heather Marichal, 24, of Lewiston said.
On Thursday, Marichal and her cousins, Marissa Lussier, 19, of Lewiston and Victoria Dam, 19, of Turner took the day off from work. They assembled beach towels, camp chairs, games, cards and nail polish and committed themselves to filling a thick book of Mad Libs with all “Harry Potter” answers. (“Do not throw Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans at the students.”)
They began camping out at 9 a.m. in front of Flagship Cinemas for the midnight show of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”
“First for the last movie,” Dam said wistfully, sporting a homemade pink tube top with “HP7” in gold lightning bolts.
They’ve finished the series and seen the movies multiple times, and they have walked out of the theater unhappy before.
“We read the books and expect so much,” Marichal said. The last one, they agreed, “Deathly Hallows: Part 1,” fit just half a book into a movie and finally got the space to get everything in and get everything right. They were excited to see how it ended on the screen with Harry and Voldemort, the villain who has doggedly pursued Potter through seven books and now, eight films.
Andrew Poore, Flagship Cinemas’ director of operations, said Thursday morning that the midnight shows in Lewiston and Auburn, with two screens each, had nearly sold out. One of the Lewiston screens was showing the movie in 3-D.
“We’ve been getting calls asking about the midnight show for months — the die-hards, we call them,” Poore said.
One of them would be Dam.
“I called every single day for (weeks). They wouldn’t give me a day: ‘Maybe tomorrow.’ I’m going to call tomorrow if you tell me tomorrow,” she said. “That was the most nerve-wracking thing, getting our hands on tickets. The next thing was to be first.”
Lussier had a cooler of food in her car, and they planned to walk to the nearby Tim Hortons if they had to use the bathroom before the theater opened its doors. Each said she had a favorite character: for Lussier, blond bad boy Draco Malfoy; for Marichal, prickly potions teacher Severus Snape; and for Dam, Harry’s red-headed best chum.
“Ron Weasley. I will marry him,” she said with a laugh.
The women had all agreed months ago to take Friday off. They have tickets to see the movie in IMAX 3-D in Saco.
“We’re leaving early,” Marichal said. “We want to be the first in line there, too.”
kskelton@sunjournal.com
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- Cousins, from left, Marissa Lussier, 19, Victoria Dam, 19, and Heather Marichal, 24, started waiting in line at 9 a.m. Thursday at Flagship Cinemas in Lewiston for the midnight showing of the final “Harry Potter” film. They created Potter-themed games and one-of-a-kind T-shirts for the event.
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- Heather Marichal, 24, of Lewiston, created a one-of-a-kind tee-shirt to mark the final installation of the Harry Potter movies, which premiered at midnight this morning.
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- Cousins, from left, Marissa Lussier, 19, Heather Marichal, 24, both of Lewiston, and Victoria Dam, 19, of Turner, have been waiting in line at Flagship Cinemas in Lewiston since 9 a.m. Thursday for the midnight showing of the final “Harry Potter” film. The three die-hard fans had already bought their tickets to the sold-out show and had plans to attend the noon showing at the IMAX theater in Saco on Friday.
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