New Moon Topples The Dark Knight’s Opening Day Record

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 21, 2009

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Despite my clear disdain for the latest entry in the Twilight series, as written in my review, I must admit that Summit Entertainment is doing something right. The marketing arm of Summit, that is. The production arm is having some trouble assembling a creative team that can deliver a movie that’s more than fan-service, but those marketers seem to be taking things to the next level.

Reports are coming in today that The Twilight Saga: New Moon not only broke the midnight opening record with $26.3 million at 3,514 theaters, but it has also passed The Dark Knight ($67.1m) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($62m) for the all-time highest opening day record, earning an estimated $72.7 million on Friday (11/20). This is more than double the opening day take of the first Twilight film, which earned $35.9 million on the same November weekend in 2008.

Many pundits around the web are talking about the potential for New Moon to overtake The Dark Knight’s 3-day record of $158 million, but I’m not sure I would go that far so soon. We have to remember that the Twilight box office take was very front-loaded. The first film opened to $35 million, then doubled its take over the rest of the weekend to earn $69 million on opening weekend. In order for New Moon to earn over $158m, it would have to more than double it’s $71m opening day take. Don’t be surprised if it gets to $130-140 million range by the end of the weekend.


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  • jojo man
    holy ballsack that's a lot of money...looks like your 70 mil prediction for the entire weekend was a bit off.
  • Girl Power!

    Twilight fans are making hardcore Star Wars fans look downright casual.
  • Taylor
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Strings_Attache...)

    If N Sync can sell 2.4 million albums in a week, than anything is possible because teenage girls have terrible taste in everything.
  • Beef2taco
    HAHAHA that is soooo true
  • When the highest grossing movies of the year are Twilight and Transformers, I will be convinced that the average IQ of a modern moviegoer is roughly on par to that of a carrot.
  • deltavoyage
    Please excuse me while I vomit in disgust.
  • kennethe
    How come when there is a hit movie with a large % being female, there is a huge outcry? Does everything in this country have to be male-dominated? I wish bloggers would slam those Transformers/Lord of the Rings/Spiderman movies more often.
  • Transformers got ravaged by most bloggers. Lord of the Rings is a fantastic movie series, as are two of the Spider-Man movies. Spider-man 3 is hated by most bloggers. Don't act like we're being unfair to females here.

    These are terrible movies making money. To act like Lord of the Rings is bad and Twilight is good demonstrates a gigantic problem: that people consider Twilight on the same level of quality.
  • ladyofthelake
    Nobody with taste, male or female, would ever trash the Lord of the Rings movies. Which by the way had a very big female following, myself included.
  • N.
    Lord of the Rings isn't male-dominated, and come to that, neither is Transformers. I'm a female, & having read all four Twilight books (regrettably) & watched the first movie.. well, it's nowhere near in the same league as LOTR, which is definitely the best movie series out there & very close to being the best books as well. Twilight/New Moon is only slammed because is deserves it - and besides, 90 % of people who watch it are only watching it because of Robert Pattinson (who was better looking in Harry Potter anyway) or to see Taylor Lautner take his shirt off. Go figure.
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