Box Office Report: 'Twilight' sinks its teeth into a blockbuster debut
Nov 23, 2008, 01:38 PM | by Joshua Rich
Categories: Box Office
Twilight, director Catherine Hardwicke's adaptation of
Stephenie Meyer's vampire-romance novel, easily won the weekend box office with
a $70.6 mil debut gross, according to Sunday's estimates. Fellow freshman flick Bolt and hefty
holdover Quantum of Solace, meanwhile, trailed far behind.
That huge premiere number represents achievements on many levels for Twilight. It's the top debut ever for a film directed by one woman (Mimi Leder's Deep Impact banked $41.2 mil on its initial weekend 10 years ago). It's the 29th best first-weekend bow of all time (falling just shy of 300's $70.9 mil and coming in just ahead of Transformers' $70.5 mil). It's by far the biggest opening yet for fledgling studio Summit, whose previous best bow was Never Back Down's $8.6 mil back in March. It stands as the fourth biggest premiere of the year -- better than Quantum of Solace's $67.5 mil opening, better than WALL-E's $63.1 mil, better than Hancock's $62.6 mil, to name a few. Last, but almost certainly not least, it's nearly exactly what I predicted (hooray, me!).
So it's no surprise that the studio already announced a sequel, New Moon. But the question for now, of course, is where Twilight, which averaged a bloody good $20,636 in 3,419 theaters, goes from here? Not surprisingly, girls and women comprised a whopping 75 percent of the film's audience, but will they continue to pack theaters as the weeks go on? In the short term: yes. According to studio data, ticket buyers gave the movie a nice A- grade, signaling the spread of positive word of mouth as we head into Thanksgiving. Certainly, there will be some competition for this core crowd from Australia and Four Christmases next week, but you can also assume that Twilight will be able to build on its super-smashing start.
Second place went to Quantum of Solace, which banked $27.4 mil (again, almost exactly as I predicted). That's a big 59 percent drop from the James Bond flick's big bow last time around. On the bright side, the Daniel Craig movie became the year's 20th release to cross the $100 mil mark domestically. It has a 10-day sum of $109.5 mil in the U.S. and Canada, and it has brought in some $418 mil worldwide to date.
Next up: Bolt (No. 3), which underperformed perhaps ever so slightly with $27 mil (way below my prognostication, alas). Nonetheless, that's a good number for a non-Pixar animated movie that could have gotten swallowed up by stiff competition. And unlike Twilight, Bolt has no natural rivals at the box office in the near future. Combine that fact with the A- CinemaScore review it drew from a "four quadrant" crowd filled with people of all ages and genders, and its financial future looks secure.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (No. 4 with $16 mil) and Role Models (No. 5 with $7.2 mil) rounded out a stellar top five. And for the third straight weekend, the multiplex housed a $60 mil-plus grosser, the first time that's ever happened outside of summer.
Thus, the overall box office got a nice 2 percent bump over the same frame a year ago (when Enchanted and This Christmas led the way). All of which portends nice things to come as the most wonderful time of the year gets underway.
More 'Twilight' and Box Office News:
EW.com's Twilight Central
Box Office Preview: Twilight to suck up buckets of blood...and big bucks
Twilight: The EW review
Quantum of Solace Stirs up a Win
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