The musical ""Dreamgirls"" - one of the post-holidays' hottest films - finally opens in Madison theaters Friday, 19 days after it began showing in dozens of other major markets, including Milwaukee.

How did ""Dreamgirls"" manage to avoid one of the Madison-area's 50-plus screens when there's still room in three local cinemas for Mel Gibson's epic ""Apocalypto,"" which opened more than a month ago?

Don't blame area theater operators. Spokesmen at Marcus Theatres (Point, Eastgate and Westgate) and AGT Enterprises (Star) said they've been eager to bring ""Dreamgirls"" to Madison. But the film's distributor, a cooperative between Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks, chose to limit its initial run to large urban markets.

As a result, ""Dreamgirls"" appears on 852 screens nationwide - or nearly four times fewer screens than the children's film ""Charlotte's Web."" Regardless, ""Dreamgirls"" has earned $55 million at the box office.

""It's the strategy of the studio to create a lot of excitement,"" said Carlo Petrick, Milwaukee- based Marcus Theatres' communications manager. ""We've asked for the film in many locations and the distributor hasn't provided it to us.""

javascript""> javascript"" src=""http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js""> Paramount/DreamWorks originally planned to expand the film to 1,800 screens nationally on Jan. 19 - using attention from the upcoming Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 15 and Academy Award nomination announcements on Jan. 23 to boost it.

AGT Enterprises wanted ""Dreamgirls"" to play at Star Cinema sooner, but the distributor restricted it to the company's Omaha-area theater.

Petrick said the ""Dreamgirls"" studio may not have expected a musical film to do so well so quickly. He added that the musical ""Chicago"" also had a slow release nationally in 2002.

The film-release strategy, Petrick added ""is unusual, but it's not unheard of.""

Source: Madison"