For all of the Twilight-haters out there, stop reading now. Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner, just grossed over $30 million on Tuesday’s midnight showings alone, giving it the highest-grossing midnight run of all time. The franchise’s third installment aired in some 4,000 theaters, pulling over $1 million from its 192 IMAX engagements.
Eclipse will expand to 4,416 domestic locations today (making it the single widest domestic release in history), and will continue opening in 42 foreign markets through July 1st, posing a formidable challenge at the box office to Paramount’s The Last Airbender, also opening July 1st. Luckily for M. Night Shyamalan and Paramount, Eclipse is unlikely to overlap with Airbender’s target demographic of males 25 and under.
Twilight: New Moon currently holds the number one spot for highest single-day gross of all time – but not for long, according to Hollywood.com’s Box-office President Paul Dergarabedian. “This portends potentially the biggest single-day gross in box-office history.” In fact, Twilight may even have a shot at taking the five day (Wednesday through Sunday) opening box office record. “My original estimate was $190 [million]… Now I’m thinking Eclipse has a true shot at beating Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and its $200 million five day debut.”
