The Twilight Saga: New Moon grossed an astounding $140.7 million at the box office this weekend, exploding most industry expectations en route to the biggest autumn opening weekend in history and the third biggest three-day debut ever, according to early estimates from Hollywood.com Box Office. (The Dark Knight still retains the record for the biggest weekend debut with $158.4 million, and Spider-Man 3 is second with $151.1 million.) The second film in Summit Entertainment’s blockbuster franchise outright doubled Twilight’s opening weekend of $69.6 million, and it did so almost entirely with a female audience: A whopping 80 percent of New Moon tickets went to women. Theatergoers were evenly split between those under 21-years-old and over, and they were clearly satisfied, giving New Moon a solid “A-” CinemaScore rating. Despite the film’s sharp drop from its record-setting $72.7 million opening day — New Moon’s Saturday total was $43.2 million, and it’s estimated to take in $24.8 million on Sunday — it’s abundantly clear that Bella, Edward, and Jacob have plenty to howl about: Worldwide, New Moon raked in $258.8 million.
Vampires and werewolves weren’t the only champions at the box office, either. Sandra Bullock continued her stellar year, with her true-life sports drama The Blind Side clearing an estimated $34.5 million for second place. It’s the best opening gross of Bullock’s career — a record she set just five months ago when The Proposal took in $33.6 million — all the more remarkable considering 59 percent of the audience was women, making this one of the most lopsidedly female-driven weekends in Hollywood history. The Blind Side also tallied a terrific “A+” CinemaScore, which should bolster the film through the rest of the year as a true word-of-mouth hit.
Given this weekend’s massive box-office tsunami, it is actually rather impressive that mega-disaster movie 2012 only dropped 59 percent on its second weekend, taking in $26.5 million for $108.2 million total and third place. The weekend’s real casualty was the animated sci-fi comedy Planet 51, which managed to open at just $12.6 million for fourth place. At fifth, Disney’s A Christmas Carol continued to hold on strong, dropping 45 percent for $12.2 million and $79.8 million total. And Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire pulled in $11 million for sixth place on just 629 screens; after only three weeks of a limited, platform release, the Oscar favorite has grossed a stunning $21.4 million.
Two other limited release debuts had varying success. Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar’s latest film Broken Embraces took in a solid $54,000 per theater in two venues. Meanwhile, in 27 theaters, Nicolas Cage’s critically acclaimed performance lifted Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans to a $9,519 per theater average.
Overall, this November weekend at the box office felt yet again like the height of the summer season: The top ten films raked in $245 million, an insane 59 percent jump from last year (when Twilight was king). In fact, movie theaters have not seen this much business since The Dark Knight thundered into cineplexes in July 2008, and it bears repeating that all those dollar signs this weekend came by far from the purses, pocketbooks, and wallets of women.
Image Credit: Kimberley French
Comments (1-15) of 308 Add your comment
At least people will now see that Twilight has a very large adult fanbase.
That being said, while I’m a huge fan of the books, I did not like the movie.
Oh I realize there is an adult audience since I have girlfriends obsessed, the problem is I don’t understand it.
For all you MST3K fans, Rifftrax (the guys behind Tom, Crow & Mike) has done a hilarious commentary for Twilight that actually turns dreck into something quite palatable… and they finally settle the age-old sparkly vampire vs. non-sparkly vampire debate!!
OK, my first question is – What the heck is a CinemaScore? Who checks that stuff? And who makes it? It’s supposed to be from people who’ve seen the movie in theaters, but I’ve never ever been asked to grade a movie…?
Also, my second question is – how do they figure out how many men or women went to see the movie? Again, I’ve never been asked, and how do they know to tally me and my girlfriend? It’s just an estimate, and I really don’t think it makes much sense.
You’re a moron.
Do you think TV rating rate every single person watching TV?
Do you think they poll every single person in the U.S. about who they are going to vote for before the election?
It’s called a survey, you idiot. They survey a reasonable percentage of people and use that as a predictor for overall public behavior.
MORON.
A HUGE travesty in the history of film.
It’s a sad day that such mediocre, unoriginal GARBAGE has found this success.
RIDICULOUS!
Just like Sarah Palin selling 300,000 copies of her ghost-written fictional autobiography.
If you don’t like, don’t watch it. Same goes with the Sara Palian Thing. No One is forcing you to watch it. So Get Over It
Muuuaahhhahahahahaha!
well i personally loved this movie. i hated twilight but this one was so much better and deserves the praise its getting. and im effing tired of it not being categorized as a “real movie” stop complaining. i get tired of all the hype too even tho im a fan, but its popular obviously, and people are interested. so suck it up and shut up!
twilight is gonna rule the world I thought we’ve all accepted that
I don’t give a rat’s @$$ about Palin and her dopey book.
If you’re using that in your sad defense, then you’re giving everyone proof that these movies cater to idiots.
Garbage? No, that would be Old Dogs, Talledega Nights, South Park: The Movie….shall I continue?
I actually agree with your garbage list but New Moon is included in there.
The worst part of how this will turn out is EW will continue to beat this overrated crap into the ground.
I guarantee you this will garner another useless cover story.
I don’t understand why the trailer shows onething, and the movie something else. The scenes from the trailer with Bella wrecking motorbike, and jumping off cliff were not in movie. The scene of Jacob with short hair claiming to never leave Bella like Edward did, were not in the movie. The wolf scenes were not in the movie.Are the trailers a teaser for the next movie? I was expecting what the trailers showed, so I was a bit disappointed, but other than that the movie was ok.
You probably saw the Sandra Bullock movie and didn’t realize you were at the wrong one.
umm, all those parts were in the movie, douche…i went in thinking this movie would suck, cuz i had to read the book on a lost bet, but it actually was ton better than the book
Where you watching the movie or sleeping it was all in the movie. Maybe you should watch it again and this time try to keep up.
You probably wisely fell asleep during this horrible movie.
Actually, my friends and I, in two different theaters saw two different movies; the cliff and motorcycle scenes WERE in my movie and WERE NOT in hers…some film splicing error perhaps?
hahaha umm i went to see it, they were in it. maybe you went to the bathroom or passed out.
sometimes they put deleted scenes in the trailer or just the takes they didnt use, as far as i saw(in norway) all those scenes were in the movie
Belinda, are you sure you actually saw New Moon? Those scenes were indeed in the movie. Maybe you left the theatre to buy popcorn???
It goes to show that female-driven movies can make lots of money even though it’s badly reviewed. Some men on here hate the fact that New Moon has made so much money because it was after all made for women.
I have no idea why that’s such a shock to everyone, including movie studios. Women make up half the population and we like movies, too. Arguably a wider range of movies than men. Women can unapollagetically enjoy so called “chick flicks” but also enjoy action movies, horror, dramas, any genre really. Who do you think pushed Titanic to be the top grossing film of all time? Teenage girls who went back several times to see Leo. Duh! I don’t get why it always gets headlines when a movie geared towards women makes money.
googliezoo, ITA! Why the shock? I like all kinds of movies and am happy that the Hollywood PTB may finally be waking up to the fact that women have plenty of economic clout!
Agree, Kristen. Thought New Moon was crap. Absolute garbage. I’m a huge fan of the books and the movie TWILIGHT, particularly Carter Burwell’s brilliant score and the songs in TWILIGHT – especially Rob’s song “Never Think.” Whereas TWILIGHT had passion, atmosphere and suspense, New Moon was vapid, boring and generic and the music in New Moon was so awful it was muzak. The cast are all talented, no question, but they can’t rise above a bad script and hack directing job (sorry Mr. Weitz.) Here’s hoping Catherine Hardwicke will direct Breaking Dawn cuz if she doesn’t, I won’t bother to see it.
Well, at least it didn’t beat TDK’s weekend. I don’t mind that record being beaten, it’d just be nice for it to be beaten by a decent film. Not this.
Amen.
Proof that this passing fad can’t hold a candle to more substantial fare is the fact that it dropped 40 percent on saturday and then another 40 on sunday. Where were all the female fans on those other days? Clearly word of mouth is bad.
That’s not what it says at all. In fact, word of mouth is good. An A- CinemaScore is very good. All this says is that around half of the crowd that wanted to see the movie saw it on the first day. Typical for a film with a hardcore following and one with an “event” opening. All that being said, this movie looks terrible.
Nate how can you say this? you need to wait about 2 weeks!
ur mouth is bad
I love TDK, but who givea a *beep*? Did you get some of TDK’s money?
No. Why on Earth would you construe that I was?
agreed. also, i feel bad for the 20 percent of guys forced to see twilight this weekend. oh well.
Thank God, I like the Twilight series but The Dark Knight is wayyyyyy much better.
Better than the first movie, so glad that I can say that. Is New Moon the greatest movie ever made? Absolutely not but it isn’t horrible either so the haters need to tone down the violence just like lovers need to tone down the worship.
SING IT, yo. Also, I realize that the franchise is not without its problems (in fact, they are many), but I find it highly telling that Twilight’s biggest critics all have Y chromosomes. So, it’s perfectly ok for men to like mindless drivel (GAT, Halo, Transformers much?), but it’s not ok for women to do so?
Amen. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Any movie that appeals to women never gets higher than a 3 star rating from the majority of male critics. It’s bad enough that men MUST take control of the remote at home and pout when they don’t get it, but control of cinema too. Not a chance. Perhaps most men don’t like it because their women are drooling over another man. It’s about time the tables got turned.
Exactly NAWS. I was drug to the movie theatre to sit through Transformers 1 & 2 with the boyfriend and I hated every minute of it. Yet I managed to not find a Transformers site to go bash the movie on. I wonder how I retrained myself. I also spared my poor bf and didn’t make him go to either movie, though he’s watched the first one on DVD. I gotta say… I’m kind of starting to enjoy the bashing. It’s just all so ridiculous since NM kicked butt this weekend. Hate on haters.. hate on. You’re all so childish.
Amen! I usually like action movies (that cater to men), and watched Transformers 2 the other day, that was the worst movie I saw in a long time and it had 3x the budget of New Moon. As a fan of the books, I enjoyed NM, but didn’t think it was a great cinematic acheivement either. I can be objective.
Absolutely insane! I’ll check out New Moon after the tween set has had their fix.
Femala power! Yay!
What is femala?
All those Miley Cyrus crowd went to see the movies. It can make $ billion this weekend but i still will not go see this crap.
‘Watch music videos online 24/7 on defSpot com’
did u know miley cyrus hates twilight? do ur research.
She had to turn around that whole ordeal after all of the moms’ threatened to burn their daughters’ CD collections.
There is no lie about it: this debut is very impressive. 140 million is more than the potter movies. and i think it is (somewhat sadly) safe to say that the twilight franchise has hit the potters juggernaut popularity and success. I don’t think it will make more than 320 million though, expect massive drops from here on out. Maybe it won’t even break 280 million. The potter franchise will always be better BO wise and reviews-wise, plus worldwide they still dominate much, much more than twilight. Which is good because seriously the twilight movie is basically shirtless toned men with action and sappy romance.
I loved the New Moon movie and people are happy that it didn’t beat Dark Knight but the third movie Eclipse comes out this summer and it is the best book SO WATCH OUT !!
Like it or not Twilights here to stay. I wish Miley would go away.
Haters today never succeed!(lol)
“twilights here to stay”
Yeah.. until the MOVIES END in 2011.
yea just like the how the harry potter books r gonna end
If you like Twilight, you are an idiot.
If you negatively judge people on a franchise they like, then you’re the idiot.
No, Sheldon is correct
Sheldon is indeed correct
No, you’re the idiot
Go, ML. People mock what they don’t understand — or care to consider.
sheldon, what type of movies do you like? just curious. i just don’t get why your movie pref makes you an “idiot”? just asking
Sheldon and Barock clearly think they are superior for being so dismissive of a a franchise that so millions of people all over the world enjoy. If they were commenting on Entertainment Weekly I might have a little more sympathy but seeing as they are clearly followers of popular culture, they should pipe down! There really is not such a big intellectual gap between TDK and Twilight, it’s sad that you so clearly lack perspective!
Don’t you just love how someone thinks they are better then others based solely on what movies they like? He’s the idiot.
the dark knight was honored at the oscars. twilight won mtv awards best kiss. if you don’t think there is a difference you are ignorant
yes I’m aware there is a difference, I’m just saying it’s not such a big difference that it warrants people completely dismissing others on the basis of it. TDK was not avant garde cinema, it was a popular blockbuster.
You know, I read the books. They’re not great but then I’m not their target audience. I do think that calling people who read Twilight idiots is a bit much though. My daughters read them, enjoyed them and are far from being idiots. One’s favourite book is Madame Bovary and the other’s is The Catcher in the Rye. Mine is Wuthering Heights.
I see no reason for the inane name calling. While the Twilight series will never be confused for the best of Stephen King or even the Bram Stoker archetype– I’d prefer you not call the women in my life morons.
Take a note, nastiest of the the male hater trolls…this is how a guy gets laid.
Clearly you like new moon more than ur acting like you do b cuz ur taking time out to write about it. Your the idiot for even taking time out of your day to write about something you hate so much your a fool get a life stop obsessing over a movie you dont like STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!
I honestly don’t know why any movie would want to open on the same day as New Moon… Imagine how much better the other movies would’ve done if they were smart enough to pick the weekend before or after…
I Definitely Agree With That! & Most Of The Reasons Why New Moon Had A Larger Crowd On Friday then Saturday Is Because The Molvies Were Almost All Sold Out.!. I Wonder If There Is A Record For That! Because I Don’t Recall THE DARK KNIGHT Ever Selling Out Of Tickets For The Opening Night / Day In Almost All The Theaters It Was Showing In.
Eclipse Is One Of The Best Books Outta The Saga, So I Think It’ll Probably Beat Out The Dark Knights Record For The Opening Weekend! Hopefully!!
Well, ‘The Dark Knight’ opened in over 300 more theatres than ‘New Moon’ and still grossed more per theatre. Opening weekend ‘Dark Knight’ averaged $36,283 per theatre, while ‘New Moon’ averaged $34,965 per theatre. This doesn’t mean ‘New Moon’ didn’t sell out more theatres than ‘Dark Knight’ (it could have sold more childrens tickets at a lower cost for example), but it could have been about even. I’m not sticking up for ‘Dark Knight’ as I thought it was totally overrated, but just trying to state the facts.
I agree with you, when did the Dark Knight ever sell out!
nikki i know you were ten when the dark knight came out. but the dark knight was sold out quite a bit. there were tickets for the imax shows on ebay.
The Dark Knight was top of the box office for a month. I doubt New Moon can keep up for that long.
Well I’m a 43-yr old dad that took my daughter and friend to midnight, and they had it on 8 screens. Then she went to see it again with about 8 friends on Saturday but it was sold out on 3 screens (different theater). So it would have made more money on more screens. Yes she went early Sunday and it was full again. As for me, I have not read the books but have enjoyed the movies. We also love HP and the week before I took her and a friend to a Miley Cyrus concert.
Actually sometimes it’s wise to open against a huge blockbuster. ‘The Blind Side’, for example, exceeded industry expectations and most likely wouldn’t have done any better on any other weekend.
But that’s a rarity, I guess.
The best thing About the high gross is that it almost garantees there will be a 4th or 5th movie and maybe more Twilight theamed projects. So the fans are really the winners. I don’t watch twilight because others like it or not but because it is entertaining.
Well, actually, unless they split the 4th book into two movies or Meyer finishes Midnight Sun, there’s no material for there to be five Twilight movies.
Just a heads up before some rabid fan came in with a “LOLZ U LOOZER DER IZ ONLY 4 BOOKS Y DONT U READ OMGBBQSAUCE”
I underestimated the female mob of this franchise, congrats.. i HOPE elispes doest beat the Dark Knight..
your hopes won’t matter eclipse WILL beat the hell out of any movie that gets in the way.
Yes. It didn’t beat TDK. Thats surprising due to the record day it had, I thought it had the opening weekend too. That truly shows how strong it has of an audience. A great Friday then a major drop on Saturday. And yeah TDK keeps the record. This is hte first time since 2006 where a movie keeps the for two years (unless Avatar pulls out a big weekend).
2006- Pirates of Carribbean 2
2007- Spider Man 3
2008- The Dark Knight
The reason why Twilight is so popular is because it is a very simple story. Its a story about a girl falling in love with a boy. Then getting her heart broken. Then having a friend who is interested in her. Then she gets to marry the guy she first fell in love with and has a baby. It’s what women are thought to think is right. I’ve read all teh books several times. Its nothing more than a simple story, which is good for a change.
I completely agree! Edward has almost everything that any girl could want in a guy and Jacob has the rest! Also Bella is made to be just an average girl – so we all feel special – guys are just jealous that don’t like this book. I can’t wait to watch new moon!
This makes me sad.
Why? People being happy about something makes you sad? You might want to get that checked.