The Twilight Saga: New Moon grossed $72.7 million on Friday, according to estimates from Summit Entertainment, shattering The Dark Knight’s previous opening-day record of $67.2 million. (The figure includes the $26.3 million New Moon banked from midnight screenings, also a box office record.) The astronomic figure puts Bella, Edward, and Jacob on a clear path to possibly the biggest opening weekend ever, all the more impressive considering New Moon is opening in 342 fewer theaters than The Dark Knight did last year.
UPDATE: Meanwhile, it appears the vampires and werewolves of New Moon didn’t devour the box office whole; the Sandra Bullock true-life drama The Blind Side opened to a robust $10.9 million for second place on Friday, according to early estimates. The über-disaster flick 2012 landed at third with $8.1 million, a 65 percent drop from its debut last Friday. Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire continued its improbable box-office run, bringing in $3.6 million in just 629 theaters for fourth place. And the animated sci-fi comedy Planet 51 opened at fifth with an earth-bound $3.1 million.
Be sure to check back here tomorrow for the full box office report.






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You have got to be kidding me.
Clear path? The business is so front-loaded that I find it highly doubtful it will be the biggest opening weekend ever.
I’m not a Twihard. But if it breaks Darkk Knight records and overcomes the box office of Transformers to be this years biggest, the GREAT cuz both of those movies SUCKED and should be eclipsed.
yes, everything that AcaseofGeo doesn’t like should be ejected into space!
Im glad taht all of you people have absolutely nothing better to do than sit at your computers and talk about hom much you hate twilight. Now the dark knight was an excellent movie. i own it and i have seen it mutiple times. however, batman is a franchise, just like the twilight saga. people will simply watch it because they like it. is it wrong that it is successful and is making money? God, if you dont like it move on with your lives, you have to have something better to do
Just because I express my right to make comments does not mean I don’t have better things to do. Don’t you also have better things to do than respond negatively to my negative comments? At this time, I am sitting at my computer reading EW online and the thing I’m doing in life right now is taking time to respond to posts. That is something I enjoy and EW has given me the right to express my opinions on here. Having said that, I will now go back to my regular life as you suggest and make dinner, read my book, and watch NFL, and do some painting. How is that?????
im not at all saying that you shouldnt express your opinion. im saying its annoyingly monotonous reading all of these comments calling new moon “crap” and saying it sucks and whatever. its been said and its boring. if you have nothing original to add to the table, dont say anything. i loved it, and oh i have to end with saying it made over 140 million dollars!
you suck acaseofgeo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! long live haeth ledger
hey fanboys
i told you all to wait for your transformers sequel in two years. in the meantime just gloat that the girls are having fun at the movies!
Not all fangirls love Twilight. I much prefer Dark Knight over Twilight.
This travesty is breaking records set by The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and Spiderman?…confuse me! But whatever, I have a feeling everyone who’s going to watch it saw it on Friday…so the weekend totals won’t be over 100.
R u kidding me? It will be over 100 without sunday. these girls will see it everyday this weekend.
My 42-yr-old wife bought us tickets for Sunday’s show TWO WEEKS AGO. It’s not just teenage girls. There’s definitely gender bias if fanboys are OK supporting crap like Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean but dis Twilight.
I watched the movie online and as I expected it’s Pathetic crap! It’s an exact clone of the book, which is why I expect all the fans claimed to love it. It’s so BORING! I fast forwarded through most of it because it’s so BORING and cheesy. The acting is terrible and I won’t even bother talking about the special effects or lack thereof. Definitely one of the WORST movies I’ve ever seen in my life. Why it’s making so much money really dumbfounds me!
Celia, Just how do you watch a freshly released movie that’s only available in theaters online? You are either incorrect or you are helping the illegal practice of piarating movies.
AcaseofGeo: I’m not incorrect. I watched the movie and I wasn’t in the theaters. That’s all I’m saying.
There is something wrong in this world.
i COMPLETELY agree with you. i am so FED UP of this c.r.a.p!
third that
Boy, it just goes to show you the stupidity of today’s audiences.
I guess soap operas and romance novels aren’t dumbed down enough?
hey i like romance novels but hate that twilight messed with the vampyr genre. I am a girl and probably one of the only one who cant stand this movie or book, so i would rather see 2012 then this thing
Also, I guarantee this will have a HUGE drop next week.
I bet the theaters smelled like somebody opened a ca of tuna by the time the ending credits rolled.
no i am not kidding you !
oh goddamnit..
i havent seen one good review for this garbage movie..
You`re not looking hard enough! If it`s getting a rating of 30% on Rotten Tomatoes it means that not all critics gave it a negative review. Just get over all the hatred for the movie… it’s not for everyone but it does have an audience.
Well, EW gave it a B+.
that was absolutely not a review
Thats because EW has stood for the letters EW in the title NEW MOON for about a year now….
EW’s B+ review was not a review but an advertisement.
EW has been shamelessly plugging New Moon for the past 6 months. EW’s review is not objective or credible.
EW ’s credibility left the building a loooooooooong time ago.
didnt the frst one gross 70 mill on the girst nigh?????
it made 70 million in the first weekend.
no, first day. read the article…
@ugh I meant that TWILIGHT made 70 million in it’s first weekend. Pay attention.
then yes, it got around 69 million. just proves that crap makes money apparently.
I don’t get why everyone’s complaining about New Moon making a lot of money, but no one complained about Transformers… I hate double standards
Tina, alot of people complained about T2, im not sure where you were looking. its a tragedy that both movies made as much as they did
You read my mind Tina. I’m not a Twilight fan, however it buggs me that reviews/boards are talking about the litle girls/women who will see this crap movie, but there was no mention of gender in any of the T2 reviews/posts.
Total crap IMHO
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have no faith in america anymore…(sigh)
My thoughts exactly.
Really? The success of ‘New Moon’ is what is making you lose your faith in America? Really?
Seth, that was my first thought, too.
I know, I’ve seen that comment many times. I think it’s horrible. Makes me lose faith in Americans.
Agreed. Americans…specifically teenage girls…really disappoint me. What’s wrong with these people??
Nothing is “wrong” with these people. For heaven’s sake, romance has been a popular genre for women and girls for years. Simply because one particular set of books/movies appeals to a wider audience doesn’t mean there is something wrong with the world, or America, or the female gender.
So many of these comments seem sexist to me. Yes, even the ones coming from some of the women.
its a problem because it is absolutely setting the wrong standard for romance and the ideal relationship. that is one of the many wrong things with this franchise
The wrong standard? As my girlfriend so eloquently pointed out to me last night, people seem to forget that the characters in these movies are TEENAGERS DEALING WITH THEIR FIRST LOVES! How many idiotic things did you do when you first fell “in love”? Yes, I personally liked Twilight and hated New Moon (It was too depressing and whoa-is-me for my tastes), but the fact is this movie is really based on dumb teenagers for dumb teenagers. And unlike vampires and werewolves they do exist.
It’s not just teenagers dealing with their first loves. It’s about a teenager in an abusive relationship. A teenager in an abusive relationship with a DEAD guy! It’s also about a teenager who MARRIES her first so-called love. And about a teenager who consequently gets KNOCKED up and has a child at the age of 18! That’s not romance. The main audience for these films are teen girls…what kind of message is that sending??
Klyph, your girlfriend is wrong. those are not the author’s intentions, she is trying to write a true love story, and a true love story this is not
Now, granted I haven’t read the books, BUT going by the two movies I have seen there has been NO physical abuse by Edward, and the only emotional abuse by Edward was caused by him trying to protect her. He also is hella romantic, almost to the point of making me puke with his punkness. And as far as getting knocked up at 18: I bet your grandmother got knocked up before then, and I bet you think your grandfather loved her, and I bet he married her. And why oh why did you bring up the “dead guy” part. You do realize this is a fictional story, don’t you? “True love” takes many forms. Hell, I find the relationships in this movie closer to real life than most “real life” ones. Relationships are disfunctional, complicated things. Stop acting like they are not, and stop acting like every book has to send some message about how you should live your life. Teenage girls are fawning over Edward because he IS romantic. They are fawning over Jacob because he IS sweet. Bella is the bitch in all this.
Do you really know the author’s intentions? Because personally I think this is a basic story of want vs need, of what’s best vs what’s not, of easy vs hard and of safe vs dangerous, wrapped in a teen-angst drama. Women love these books/movies because there has always been that guy that they wanted or did not get, that rebellious, dangerous dude who wasn’t the best for them, but they loved him anyway (Edward). And in the end they went with the safe choice (Jacob)because it would make life easier.
Are you people serious. These books are simply fantasy. Just like every other book. The Bella / Edward relationship isn’t ABUSIVE, I mean really. Its a story about true love and thats it. Stop making it about feminism, that is the most ignorant thing I have ever heard. Its is a simple story to entertain, GET A LIFE!
Have teenage girls always been zombies or is it a recent development?
lol i think they’re actually seeing it multiple times, from what i’ve gathered. yikes. i might check it out once. i enjoyed the books on a shallow level.
You people are unbelievable! Having no faith in America teenage zombies! Give me a break it is a movie and if it makes young girls/mothers happy what is the harm in it. Dare I say the series of books are a very quick easy ENJOYABLE read and if putting it on the big screen makes it that much more enjoyable for MANY people worldwide, Why is this such a bad thing. I guess some people always need to be negative and complain.
thank you for saying what I have been thinking all along…
The film is mindnumbing garbage. People have every right to be enraged. The books are even worse. Lame, poorly written trash that should be burned in a bonfire.
@Gregoire – So I take it you’ve seen the movie and read the books? Otherwise how would you know they’re all such garbage? And really, you think people have a right to be engraged OVER A MOVIE? What a sad, sad life you must have.
I agree with you except for the “enjoyable read” part. I gave up trying to read them halfway through New Moon when I finally had to accept that it wasn’t going to get any better. It reads like a really, really bad Harlequin romance only with vampires and werewolves.
its sad where there’s love there’s hate why??? who has the movie harmed????
they are following the lead of teenage boys who stood in line to see Transformers 2
Well this really sucks. But, we all knew that TDK’s record wouldn’t hold for ticket prices going up. Its really a shame a great movie like TDK that is one of the most greatest movies of this decade get beaten out by this tween movie. But this won’t change how TDK is. TDK will still be in my opinion the biggest movie than New Moon no what matter by the numbers.
And yeah this record will be broken in the future. I even think by this December with Avatar (you never know). But there is also next summer with Iron Man 2, the Harry Potter Finales, The Hobbit movie, Spider-Man 4, and many more potentials. Records are meant to be broken. Sometimes you won’t like and sometimes you will.
Yeah the record will be broken at some point then The 3rd installment Eclipse will come along and break more records..
And that record will probably be broken by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There will be a new champ every year or so.
yup it will! so excited about that
Yeah, I agree The Dark Knight is great. However, have faith that it’ll be remembered in twenty years positively other than the Beanie Baby Jelly shoes Farrah Hair sham all the younger fangirls will look back on in Twilight. It won’t stick, and Iron Man 2 will smash any records made by New Moon, and Toy Story 3 will after that. I think it’s just a big trend in movies. And it doesn’t mean New Moon is going to touch The Dark Knight’s total domestic or world wide gross. I don’t think Twilight is nearly as big overseas, even though I’d love it to do better so I don’t have to hear “lousy Americans” and “Fall of Western Society” by smug people outside the US.
tdk sucked, this sucks, it all sucks. but it makes money and money makes the world go round, if ya dont like it, get off.
I don’t think you need to worry about it. This movie is so incredibly front-loaded that there is no way it’ll topple TDK’s record. It’ll finish somewhere around $130 million for the weekend.
Yeah. Didn’t the first Twilight like have a great opening day then had a huge fall the second day.
UMMM spider man3 WAS HORRIBLE a DISASTER!!! what makes you think the forth one will be good…worst two or three hours of my life frankly i cant even remember what it was about.
this movie really was amazing. critics will be critics and they’ll say things that will get them attention but really its up to the publics opinion.
I honestly thought this was the best movie and was a MAJOR improvement from twilight. New Moon went by the book like I was reading it. I was really impressed and can not wait till eclipse! :]
Same thing happened with Twilight. Great opening weekend but then the following weeks was beaten by Four Christmases.
It’s the continuation of the dumbing down of America.
Sad when I have to travel 40 miles to see a great movie like the Hurt Locker, but these poorly made movies are shoved down my throat. I fear for my future.
nobody is forcing you to see it.
thats not at all what he’s saying. he’s mad that he has to actually find GOOD movies, but crap like this is the medium.
Move to a bigger town or rent DVDs.
the hurt locker was a limited release movie. it wasn’t whether or not your town was big, it was the specific theaters in it. he got unlucky, as did much of america, that it wasn’t playing near him. And if he’s willing to drive 40 miles then it seems that he doesn’t want to wait for it on DVD.
I feel your pain, JT.
There’s an amazing movie called MOON starring Sam Rockwell.
Eveyone should rent that if they want to see an actual good movie with the word “moon” in the title.
Moon was fannntastic. great freaking movie
It is a great movie.
Maybe they should dumb down the DVD cover by having a pale Sam Rockwell acting all emo to get these dumb@$$es to watch a REAL movie instead of seeing garbage!
I saw the movie and it was crap! I am not a critic, but I am a huge twilight fan and have read all the books over and over. This is not the challenge, the challenge is going to be wether it can hold on at the box office like dark knight did. It may have a huge opening weekend, but will it make as much as The Dark Knight?
No, because the only people who want to see it are going this weekend. It will suffer from the biggest second week drop in recorded history.
OMG! OMG! OMG! Woohoo!
This proves that Twilight is the best! New Moon has completely covered its budget in just one day!
yay!
Twilight ruels forever!
if you think that box office equals quality, then you are sadly mistaken. remember how well Transformers 2 did?
Yeah, too bad it had something like the 7th highest friday to saturday drop of all time and is projected to make just 12 mil today.
And I doubt it makes very much next weekend. This is likely about half its going to make in its domestic Box Office run.
The Dark Knight was good, but it was a couple performances in it that were great…I’d rather watch Twilight than listen to Bale’s Batman.
that’s because you are gay
TJ, you’re an idiot.
TJ makes some sense there.
hey, just cause someone has a different opion does not make them gay. Tons of people love Twilight, most of them young and most of them femlae, so stephanie meyer wrote these books for her own enjoyment, so logically her target audience would be romantic girly-girls like herself. Dont hat cause there different from you. And about the whole drop thing, Taylor Lautner asked everyone to go see the movie at least one more time than they say Twilight, so any Jcob/Taylor fan will go see it multiple times.
darn, stupid typos, sorry about that. I’m not that stupid, just not too great at typing i suppose
k2 should shut the hell up….. the dark knight got beaten & that is that…even if ticket price inflation were adjusted, new moon would still have a higher gross!!
beaten? i promise you new moon will not make as much money as the dark knight did if you want to talk total numbers…so i dont know what u mean by beaten…that was a stupid comment from a 14 year old girl
Wow, I thought New Moon would get $90 million for the whole weekend, not just opening day.
Uh, did you read the article? It made $72.7 million…not $90 million. Big difference there…but yeah, it’s huge.
Uh, did you read C.Thomas post? He said I *THOUGHT* New Moon would get $90 million for the whole weekend.
Big difference there.
Yes Linda, I did read his post. He stated that he thought it would make $90 million for the whole weekend, then said *NOT JUST OPENING DAY* – This insinuates that he was claiming it made $90 million on OPENING DAY. Which it didn’t. If I read it wrong, that’s my bad, but maybe you read it wrong too…ever think about that?
This is a pretty ridiculous argument. That being said, it sounds to me like C. Thomas’ post was saying the movie made $90 million on opening day as well. Who knows what he meant though, and is it really all that important?
Linda is a dope.
We get the movies we deserve. Shame on those who paid to see this.
Why, exactly? Because it doesn’t appeal to you specifically? God forbid women and girls don’t seek universal approval before they decide to like something. News flash: most movies are not deep, cinematic masterpieces. They are entertainment. Which is all the Twilight saga aspires to be. People who hate Twilight don’t seem to realize they are as rabid and irrational as people who go completely nuts for it.
why exactly is a girl moping around because her boyfriend dumped her for 2 hours entertaining?
@ugh
because the audience us able to relive their same life experiences through these “actors”.
“is able”
damnen no edit function on this crap website
I hope to god that there’s no one that can actually relate them selves with Bella. She is one of the most needy, detestable characters in modern literature
AMEN!
oops, i meant about Katyo’s comment, of course people can relate to Bella, people get their heart broken and it is hard to pick yourself backup. You need someone to help you, that was what Jacob was to Bella, honestly have you even seen the movies or read the books! Bella is not needy, she is an independent woman who just happens to be in love, you try losing the love of your life and let’s see how you feel. As to the detestable part, that is a matter of opinion.
wow. shame on me! actually shame on you cause you just said that! go get a life and stop bein one sided. dude acutally go see the movie
Yes, please; than maybe you can have an educated opinion, maybe not different, but at least you won’t sound like an idiot when you say twilight is dumb!