New Moon Owns the Boxoffice but still Third Biggest Opening Weekend

I am not a Twihard, but I have to tip my hat to the makers of Twlight Saga’s New Moon as it shattered records all weekend long. I do like the series as a whole despite its glaring flaws, but it has grown to be something more than just Stephanie Meyers medochre writing and emo girls.

Latino Review says:

New Moon broke a ton of records and almost beat Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight becoming 3rd in all time opening weekends with $140.7 million estimated dollars. So far it has earned $258 million total when you include the international numbers.

Here’s some #1′s for New Moon:

Werewolf film (LOL!) #1
Yearly Opening Weekends 2009 #1
Opening Day Gross #1
Single Day Gross #1
Single Friday Day Gross #1
Opening Weekends - Nov. #1
Opening Holiday Weekends #1
Widest Independent Release #1
Widest Opening Indy Release #1
Fastest To $100 Million #1

While the “Werewolf film” title is a little specific, the other titles are a level playing field.

This is like Legos. (Stay with me a moment) Legos are insanely popular. It is by far my favourite toy growing up and my own kids still swim in the piles of it I have collected and now passed on to them. But like big boxoffice smash hits, the toy was dominated by a male demographic. Now out of no where they have lego sets for girls, and its about time that a soft squishy romance story would land in the big house with the rest of the boy toys.

Its an impressive goal nonetheless, and even all those haters out there ready with their “This is surely a sign of the end of the world!” trolling there has to at least be some respect for what they have accomplished.

Is the writing in the books great? No. Not at all.
Is it a great action flick? No. It has its moments, but this is a romance.

But it is a franchise that has managed to connect with people outside of its targetted tween girls demographic and people are clearly enjoying this franchise. I quite expect anything popular to be met with that knee jerk “I have to make fun of it” stuff, but honestly it just proves how popular it is when people do that.

That all being said, do you HAVE to like this franchise now that a lot of people went to see it? Not at all.

I myself am more looking forward to the third film as it was my favourite book of the series, but I almost hope they don’t make the last book into a movie. It was terrible. And I say that knowing the first three were not that great, but still had SOMETHING to them. I look for the good in them regardless. The fourth book had so much potential to wind up the franchise with a whimper.

This post was written by :

Rodney

The Movie Blog

aline

i’m girl twilight is an …well.. novel but if u compare this lotr,hp etc its mile away (lack of twist,plot hole, unclearly background detail etc)even i compare with underworld <this still have clear n interesting background "corvinus thing" ,i think likely meyer get her novel idea after watch queen of the damned i not from dream lol
aline

this low budget crap, the production never intend making great movie they just making crap coz no matter what they trow at market the audience will happily eat it ,so they can get huge money on it, forget your hope n fanatic for quality coz the ph know this is crap film, they just laugh at u right know if they really intend making great movie they will throw big budget,good director, good actor, just put ur fanatism down this clearly plain crap
http://vicdezen.wordpress.com Vic De Zen

the teenage girl market dominates again unfortunatetly. That’s a crazy amount of records though and i found the werewolf one to be funny =P
Peita

To provide an alternative insight into the success of this franchise …

These are fundamentally romance novels, something which I am sure most people on this site have never read, and for good reason. However there is a large proportion of the population that for 100s of years have passionately (excuse the pun) followed this type of entertainment, despite its lack of quality writing.
I can’t think of another series (books or movies) that has tapped into this type of vapid pure romance schmaltz in my lifetime, so the market has been kept waiting for a long time! In my view Titanic doesn’t come close to the ‘swooning’ type of storyline that Stephanie Meyers has gone for.
I have to agree with John that the books are poorly written - in fact poorly is an understatement - however if it means that people read, that otherwise don’t then I am all for it.
I just wish I had applied my time elsewhere : )
- Peita
  
  Apologies … Rodney not John!
Jim

The whole “guy movie, girl movie” thing is just stupid for the most part, especially the Titanic references.
- kal07
  
  The story aside, Kristen Stewart is plain BAD actor.
  
  I’ve seen her in few films and she really doesn’t know how to act. I will refrain myself from seeing this film but I did see the first one[actually rented it] and My God was she horrible there…no emotions and just plain stares…That type of acting could easily win her a place in the most pathetic actors list EVER!
  - Jim
    
    It’s light fare, you know? It is what it is and should be enjoyed (or not) as such.
    
    I went in with zero expectations, and rather enjoyed myself. This in contrast to the massive disappointments that were Terminator and Wolverine.
    
    And the above Titanic comments by Slash are still stupid.
    
    My pick for the year is still Whip It…Men who Stare at Goats wasn’t bad either.
  - SlashBeast
    
    In what way are they stupid?
    
    The driving force behind Titanic’s success was women. That’s as obvious as the sky is blue.
http://www.moviesepisodes.com john lee

if i have to chose Twilight vs Harry Potter, i would chose twilight, harry potter just too childish imo
kal07

Latino review said: “New Moon broke a ton of records and almost beat Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight becoming 3rd in all time opening weekends with $140.7 million estimated dollars”

17 MILLION DOLLARS isn’t almost…[thats a huge margin]
- http://www.thestub.ca Rodney
  
  Its still more than the #4 film.
  
  Third is still third and it still took in more than everyone else but those two.
  
  If a film made $17million people would say it was a failure (assuming average budget for a film) but a $17m gap is suddenly huge?
  
  Its all perspective.
  - kal07
    
    Certainly, your perspective is $17M is failure for average budget[i don't know where did you get this figure from?] BUT consider any Indy film…17M is good opening weekend numbers.
    
    I think it won’t sustain these trends and it really won’t matter how much it made the opening weekend if you consider the READ DEAL…final Gross.
    
    Even a great film like TDK[which managed to sustain it grip on BO for a long time] did not reach the pinnacle set by Titanic.
    I wonder if Avatar can break it? I will be very surprised if it does, but you never know!
Amy

I started reading this series a week ago. Love book 1. Decided to watch the Twilight movie. What a let down! Did a poor job with some of the best points of the book. Read book 2. Was disappointed especially since I loved book 1. Wasn’t really interested in seeing the movie but after reading everyone’s reviews on it, I’m intrigued. I thought book 3 was great. Really enjoyed Eclipse. I think it would be a great movie, probably the best of the series. Book 4 - really belongs in the trash. It was just horrible.
- Meli
  
  LoL, I’m with you. Well, I didn’t HATE Breaking Dawn, but I feel like the author really held back and didn’t follow her instincts because she was too afraid to take a chance and wanted to end the book the way she always felt it should end. To me that is a cop-out because I felt as if there were points in the book where the characters were evolving in a different direction. Eclipse is also my favorite book and I’m looking forward to seeing what David Slade has done with the film.
kal07

Well Rodney, shouldn’t you wait a little more time before comparing this movie’s box office numbers with other great movies like Dark Knight.

Agreed it has huge opening weekend numbers but the BIGGER question is will it manage to sustain it???
I don’t think so!

It is completely possible all the fangirls and few fanboys that this saga has booked their first weekend tickets and saw it ASAP. Hence my theory is the numbers will fall like a pack of cards in its 2nd, 3rd week. And it will disappear from the face of the earth pretty soon. Just wait and watch…Besides not many so called fans liked this movie, they say its flat out pathetic acting.
- thematticus
  
  It is pathetic acting with no chemistry whatsoever, but i’m afraid the box office won’t drop that bad. It has created a buzz, good or bad, and people will be still check it out so as not to be the one who didn’t see it. Hell i saw it and I hate these things. I just felt I couldn’t I had no right to hate it unless I had seen it. Now I have a right to hate it.
  - kal07
    
    I will not see this and hence won’t contribute my penny towards its receipts.
    
    In fact I will wait for Avatar in 3D and also Leap Year. Cameroon is back IS a reason enough for me to be present first day first show. And Leap Year…well Amy is always charming and great to watch, add Mathew Goode with a small fun-love story to the mix and I will see it.

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New Moon Owns the Boxoffice but still Third Biggest Opening Weekend

This post was written by :

Rodney

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