Eclipse finishes weekend in 2nd place with est $31.5M, now almost $340M worldwide

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse finished second in its second weekend, taking in an estimated $31.5M from 4,468 locations with a per theater average of $7,050 for the Friday-Sunday period. These estimates include $10.9M Friday, $11.5M Saturday, and an estimated $9.1M today. This increases the film’s domestic cumulative total to $235.16M through its first 12 days of release. Adding in foreign box office of $104.6M (through July 4) gives Eclipse a worldwide cumulative total of $339.76M. Topping the charts was Despicable Me, which opened with close to $60M. Predators, Toy Story 3, and The Last Airbender round out the top five.

These numbers are not “actuals,” meaning they are only official estimates based on early reports. For those who are new to the box office numbers game, it may seem odd to have these figures when Sunday isn’t even over yet. But it is standard procedure to have weekend totals announced at this time. After the Saturday box office totals come in on Sunday morning, studios always estimate Sunday and come up with a weekend projection. Therefore, Sunday and weekend figures can only be estimates at this point.

The actual numbers won’t be known until Monday. But many years and literally thousands of projections have yielded formulas that allow the industry to predict fairly closely what Sunday will be based on Saturday’s numbers and, therefore, what the weekend will look like. The actual numbers that come in after the weekend are usually not too far off from the estimates made on Sunday. They usually adjust slightly up or down but are rarely far off.

Keeping track of records, the film with the least number of days to reach $200M was The Dark Knight, which hit $203,773,518 after five days. New Moon is in fourth place, having taken eight days to reach $205,788,929. Eclipse stands in tenth place, taking nine days to reach $203,662,377. This puts the film ahead of Spider-Man, which took nine days to hit $202,035,007, and Avatar, which didn’t break the $200M mark until its 10th day when it hit $212,711,184.

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.

I’ll be posting updated records and further analysis as these figures are revised throughout the day, including some discussion 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.

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