UPDATE SATURDAY, JULY 17 2:30 PM:
Final box office estimates are in for Friday, July 16. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse took in $4.5M from 4,001 domestic locations for a per theater average of $1,125. This represents a 30.8% increase from Thursday and a 59.3% decrease from last Friday. Eclipse now has a cumulative domestic total of $255.871M after 17 days in release.
It comes in fourth place behind Inception, which opens with $21.645M at 3,792 locations, Despicable Me with $10.05M, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice with $5.4M. Toy Story 3 rounds out the top five. Adding in overseas returns of $219M gives Eclipse a current worldwide total of $474.871M.
For those comparing the films in The Twilight Saga, it should be noted that Eclipse is once again ahead of New Moon in cumulative domestic totals over time. At this point in its release history (after 17 days) New Moon had taken in $255,363,052. Eclipse is now at $255.871M. Both films hit the $250M mark on the 16th day.
Keeping track of records, the film with the least number of days to reach $250M was The Dark Knight, which hit $261,847,503 after eight days. New Moon is in 13th place, having taken 16 days to reach $251,530,186. Eclipse lands just behind it in 14th place, taking 16 days to reach $251,371,417. This puts the film ahead of Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and Iron Man 2, which all took 17 days to hit $250M.
So far, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has set all-time box office records for Opening Wednesdays, Single Day Wednesday Gross (non-adjusted), and Single Day Wednesday Gross (adjusted for inflation). It is in second place for Opening Day Gross, Single Day Gross, and Non-Opening Thursday Gross. Release records include Widest Releases, Widest Independent Releases, Widest Opening Independent Releases, Widest PG-13 Rated Openings, and Widest PG-13 Rated Releases.
There’s been quite a bit of discussion online regarding the film’s box office success. In particular, I wonder about the fairness of comparing the Twilight films against each other. The validity of judging Eclipse vs. New Moon is questionable given their strikingly different release schedules. As I’ve been saying since it opened, the idea was not to compete against or beat New Moon’s early numbers. That may be a goal of some people but the idea is to make money, and maybe set some records in the process.
First, there is no way that a “weekend” that begins on a Wednesday can be compared to a “normal” 3-day weekend (when New Moon opened). At that point New Moon had been in theaters 10 days while Eclipse had been out for 12 days. So any comparison between the two based on how many “weekends” it’s been out simply isn’t valid. Next, look at the time of year the two films were released. New Moon came out during the Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday season. It’s a big time of year for Hollywood but still doesn’t compare to summer, when they put out their “tentpole” films — the potential blockbusters that will keep the studios in the black for another year. The competition is much more fierce beginning Memorial Day weekend through the 4th of July. It’s simply a different marketplace.
Is Summit happy with the first days’ box office returns? I don’t know but I’m fairly sure they must be. Again, the goal was not to “beat New Moon.” That may be something the press or some others will latch on to but it’s simply not a fair comparison. It was very easy to compare Twilight to New Moon since they opened at the same time one year apart. Not so much New Moon to Eclipse. It would make more sense to wait another week…or a few…or a month or more…before starting to compare the two. Better yet, I think it’s wise to just see how the film does over time in its own right.
UPDATE SATURDAY, JULY 17 10:00 AM:
Early box office estimates are in for Friday, July 16. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse took in $5M from 4,001 domestic locations for a per theater average of $1,250. This gives the film a cumulative domestic total of $256.37M after 17 days in release. It comes in third place behind Inception, which opens with $21M at 3,792 locations on its way to a possible $55M weekend, and Despicable Me with $11.5M. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Toy Story 3 round out the top five.
UPDATE FRIDAY, JULY 16 3:00 PM:
Box office numbers are in for Thursday, July 15. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse took in another $3,439,703 from 4,468 locations for a per theater average of $770, representing a decrease of 7.59% from Wednesday. This was the smallest drop of the top seven films. Eclipse now has a cumulative domestic total of $251,371,417 after 16 days in release. Adding in overseas returns of $219M gives Eclipse a current worldwide total of $470,371,417.
It moves back up to second place behind Despicable Me with $6,397,125. Moving down from second to third place is new entry The Sorcerer’s Apprentice with $3,214,440. Toy Story 3 and Grownups round out the top five.
Here are the weekly numbers for the period from Friday, July 9 – Thursday, July 15. In its second full week, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse took in $47,709,040 from 4,468 locations for a per theater average of $10,678. This was the fourth highest average of the top 30. It finished in second place for the seven-day period behind Despicable Me and ahead of Predators and Toy Story 3.
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