‘New Moon’ Has Third Largest Debut Ever

Published by Jeff Leins on: November 23rd, 2009

Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga New Moon posted the third largest opening weekend in history from Friday-Sunday with $142.8 million.  The monster sequel also gathered another estimated $132.1 million in 24 international markets for a global total of $274.9 million.

Predominantly female fans (80%) lined up early to gawk at Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner on screen again.  They set a new midnight record of $26.3 million and the highest opening day in history with $72.7 million, swiping the top spots from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Dark Knight respectively.

The vampire follow-up failed to grab the biggest opening weekend though, landing underneath the Batman sequel ($158.4M) and Spider-Man 3 ($151.1M).  It did, however, beat Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in weekend and 3-day numbers, though it should be noted the giant robot movie opened on a Wednesday this summer.

The sequel was virtually critic-proof, posting huge numbers even after 30% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.  Nothing wrong with that, it’s just reminiscent of the same performance by Transformers 2.

The Sandra Bullock drama The Blind Side (a surprisingly good movie considering…) made $34.1 million this weekend.  It’s a personal best for Bullock, who starred in three movies this year (The Proposal and All About Steve were the others).

Roland Emmerich’s natural disaster movie 2012 dropped almost 60% to third place and $26.4 million.

The other weekend wide release was Sony’s animated movie Planet 51, which placed fourth with $12.3 million.  It’s the first movie from Ilion Animation Studios and while it wasn’t exactly the best launch, I welcome original ideas to the medium as DreamWorks goes for a fourth Shrek.  Plus it’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson!

3-Day U.S. Weekend Actuals:
1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon $142.8 million
2. The Blind Side $34.1 million
3. 2012  $26.4 million
4. Planet 51 $12.3 million
5. A Christmas Carol  $12.3 million
6. Precious  $10.9 million
7. The Men Who Stare at Goats  $2.8 million
8. Couples Retreat  $1.9 million
9. The Fourth Kind  $1.7 million
10. Law Abiding Citizen  $1.6 million