Last weekend multiplex cash registers were overflowing as the hotly-anticipated vampire sequel The Twilight Saga: New Moon opened to gargantuan numbers generating the third largest opening in box office history and led the overall marketplace to the second biggest weekend tally of all-time. Debuting far back in second, but also surging past industry expectations, was Sandra Bullock's new football pic The Blind Side which got off to a fantastic start. The two new female-driven films attracted over $175M in combined ticket sales leading the top ten to soar to a jaw-dropping $245M.
Audiences wanted monster love as The Twilight Saga: New Moon stunned the film industry by beating what were already sky-high expectations opening to an estimated $140.7M over the Friday-to-Sunday period. That gave Summit the third best opening weekend ever trailing the super hero duo of The Dark Knight ($158.4M in July 2008) and Spider-Man 3 ($151.1M in May 2007). However, New Moon did break the all-time records for highest post-midnight grosses on the night before opening day with $26.3M and the best opening day with $72.7M. The records were formerly held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Dark Knight with $22.2M and $67.2M, respectively. The Twilight sequel cost only $50M to produce while the others cost well over $200M each.
The Bella Swan love story grossed more in its first day than its predecessor Twilight did in its entire opening weekend. That film bowed this weekend with $69.6M on its way to $191.5M from North America and $384M worldwide. Following New Moon's record opening day, the PG-13 film tumbled 41% to $43.2M on Saturday and is estimated to drop another 43% to $24.8M on Sunday. The Friday-to-Saturday decline was identical to Twilight's which is quite remarkable given how the new installment had much more fan hysteria surrounding it and 605 more theaters leading one to think it would absorb more of its total business upfront on the first day. Both installments earned 52% of the total weekend gross on Friday.
Other records set include best November bow and best non-summer opening surpassing the $102.3M of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which had set both of those milestones four years ago this very weekend. Young women have been the driving force behind the Cullen franchise since the publication of the popular books, but mature women have also made up a sizable portion of the fan base. Studio research showed that 80% of the audience this weekend was female with those over and under age 21 evenly split. That translates to females under the age of 21 spending about $56M this weekend to see Kristin Stewart choose between Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.
As if the domestic performance was not impressive enough, New Moon attacked 25 foreign markets this weekend too and hauled in an estimated $118.1M making for a staggering global debut of $258.8M. Summit has worldwide rights but has assorted distributors doing the releases across the globe. The company has already filmed the third pic in the series, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, which will be ready for a June 30 release when students will be out of school and ready for more from the vampire-werewolf teen tale. The date is the Wednesday before the long Independence Day holiday frame.
Led by Twilight, the overall marketplace surged to the second highest total in box office history trailing only the July 18-20 frame last year when The Dark Knight had its record bow and Mamma Mia debuted well in second. The Top 20 that frame pulled in $257.6M while this weekend's will come very close with $254M, if estimates hold. Also amazing this weekend was that despite the sheer domination of New Moon, moviegoers still found time to spend another $105M on the rest of the films in the top ten. That bodes well for the upcoming five-day Thanksgiving holiday session which kicks off on Wednesday.
Five months after breaking her career opening weekend record, Sandra Bullock did it again with the football drama The Blind Side which performed much better than expected with a $34.5M debut, according to estimates. The figure edged out the $33.6M bow of her hit summer comedy The Proposal which gave America's favorite bus driver her previous best mark. Opening in 3,110 locations, the Warner Bros. release averaged a sturdy $11,096 per site. Reviews were generally good and football movies often draw large crowds. Based on a true story, Blind Side tells of a homeless black youth taken in by a rich white family that helps him launch a successful football career.
The PG-13 film was expected to collect about half as much since its older female audience would be distracted by Twilight which has a large fan base of moms. But the marketplace expanded and had plenty of room for both. The blonde Bullock's film skewed 59% female and 75% to those 25 or older, according to studio research. The road ahead looks bright with the actress set to score her second $100M blockbuster of the year after nearly a decade without any.
| # | Title | Nov 20 - 22 | Theaters | Weeks | Cumulative | Distributor | |||
| 1 | The Twilight Saga: New Moon | $ 140,700,000 | 4,024 | 1 | $ 140,700,000 | Summit | |||
| 2 | The Blind Side | 34,510,000 | 3,110 | 1 | 34,510,000 | Warner Bros. | |||
| 3 | 2012 | 26,500,000 | 3,408 | 2 | 108,221,000 | Sony | |||
| 4 | Planet 51 | 12,600,000 | 3,035 | 1 | 12,600,000 | Sony | |||
| 5 | A Christmas Carol | 12,230,000 | 3,578 | 3 | 79,791,000 | Buena Vista | |||
| 6 | Precious | 11,008,000 | 629 | 3 | 21,403,000 | Lionsgate | |||
| 7 | The Men Who Stare At Goats | 2,773,000 | 2,056 | 3 | 27,624,000 | Overture | |||
| 8 | Couples Retreat | 1,952,000 | 1,712 | 7 | 105,001,000 | Universal | |||
| 9 | The Fourth Kind | 1,730,000 | 1,648 | 3 | 23,343,000 | Universal | |||
| 10 | Law Abiding Citizen | 1,615,000 | 1,327 | 6 | 70,027,000 | Overture |
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