Did fireworks scare off fang-girls? Did Team Jacob's
screams scare off the unaligned crowds? Why couldn't
Eclipse's box-office start quite match
New Moon's?
Here are the final findings on the new
Twilight movie's Fourth of July weekend:
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• For starters, the $68 million
Eclipse made lots and lots and
lots of money: $82.5 million from Friday-Monday alone, per the latest estimates.
• Since opening Wednesday,
Eclipse has sucked up $175.3 million domestically, the biggest six-day haul of the year, and the eighth-biggest in Hollywood history.
• Overall,
Eclipse set three records of note:
biggest midnight gross ever,
biggest Wednesday ever; and, widest release ever.
And yet…
Despite its stellar stats,
Eclipse is still running slightly behind
New Moon, which, after six days, had taken in $178.9 million (for sixth on the
all-time list).
The difference between the two
Twilight Saga siblings is small—less than $4 million—and
New Moon's slightly faster start was mainly aided by the calendar, with
New Moon taking full advantage of its Friday opening day.
Eclipse, however, was not thrown to the wolves by Summit Entertainment. While its Wednesday opening pretty much prevented it from vying for opening weekend (or
New Moon) records, its summer setting could lead to bigger mid-week grosses—and, eventually, bigger-than-
New Moon grosses.
Other notable box-office factoids:
• Toy Story 3 was to crack $300 million overall domestically today—its 18th day in release. Only six films have reached that milestone faster, per Box Office Mojo.
• With a $53.2 million Friday-Monday gross,
The Last Airbender didn't crash, but its fuel may be about to give out. Opening-weekend audiences graded the critically trashed fantasy epic a so-so C, the
Los Angeles Times reported. (By comparison, the
Twilight faithful awarded
Eclipse an A.)