There were howls at midnight on Wednesday and none of them came from any canine maws. Instead they were howls of anguish as boyfriends and husbands alike took their partners to watch the newest installment of the “Twilight” saga.
“The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” opened midweek and in a true show of strength raked in at least $30 million. Impressive as that maybe for a midweek opening, the success is highlighted further when you consider that it broke the record for an opening night haul in the series. The second movie in the series, “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”, gathered over $26 million last year; but it opened on a Friday which obviously guaranteed it more traffic. Summit Entertainment, the movie’s distributor, could not give a final accurate figure as the total tally would only be arrived at on Thursday morning. However, they were quite confident that that it would be well past the $30 million mark by then.
The movie can only expect to go from strength to strength, as it is poised to run rampant over a massive five day run helped by the 4th of July weekend. The current record for the five day weekend is held by the sci-fi thriller “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and stands at $200 million. “Eclipse” looks set to sail past that figure with ease.
Success in that league will only ensure rapid processing of the next two movies in the saga; “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2” are set to be released in 2011 and 2012 respectively.
