According to Larry Richman of PROnetworks, Summit Entertainment officially announced estimates that New Moon took in $140.7 million this weekend. Larry also explains the ‘estimates’ are for Sunday and the official numbers are reported on Monday, but aren’t too different from the estimates.
Summit Entertainment now officially estimates that The Twilight Saga: New Moon took in $140.7M from 4024 theaters this weekend. This puts the film in third place for all-time opening weekends, behind The Dark Knight ($158.4M) and Spider-Man 3 ($151.1M) and ahead of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($135.6M). The film also hauled in $118.1M from 25 foreign countries for a worldwide total $258.8M.
In addition to becoming the new champ in midnight box office and single-day totals on Friday, New Moon has now shattered several other records as well.
It was the #1 biggest non-summer opening weekend of all time and the biggest ever box office opening for an independent film (and widest indie release in history).
New Moon also broke the record for fastest to reach $100M, beating The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3. Of the top 34 films with numbers released today, New Moon took in more than all the 33 others combined.
After its record-shattering $72.7M first day Friday, there was a 41% drop from Friday to Saturday when it took in $43.2M. This was about the exact same percentage decrease Twilight had one year ago (down 40.8% Saturday, down 41.9% Sunday). Another 40% drop going into Sunday, based on advance sales, tracking polls, and other industry formulas, brings the weekend total to $140.7M with a per theater average of $34,965. Many international regions have yet to release the film. Sources expect New Moon to eventually pass $500M worldwide. Twilight ended its run with $385M.
Great news! $258.8 million worldwide! New Moon hasn’t opened in Germany, Japan or Russia yet!
So the ‘estimates’ are close to the official numbers that come out on Monday. I was thinking we were getting closer to the #2 spot for all time opening weekend. #3 is still amazing.