‘New Moon’ Rises as Midnight Record Holder

Published by Jeff Leins on: November 20th, 2009

The Twilight Saga: New Moon broke all midnight opening records last night with an estimated $26.3 million in 3,514 theaters.

Predominantly female fans flooded theaters for the new dose of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner.  Some even showed up for Summit Entertainment’s re-release of the original Twilight at 2,057 locations, which made $1.3 million even with reduced ticket prices and a single showtime.

The Summit sequel beat the previous record holder, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($22.2 million) and the second place finisher, The Dark Knight ($18.5 million).

New Moon now sets it sights on the opening day record held by the Batman sequel, which currently stands at $67.2 million.  The PG-13 vampire flick will definitely smash the $36 million Friday of the first Twilight and its opening weekend total of $69.7 million.

Experts are predicting a $90-100 million weekend, which may be doable with repeat buys from frenzied fans.  Fandango reported 10 tickets are selling per second on the website.