Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

The third movie in the Twilight franchise, Twilight: Eclipse, hit big in its debut weekend as it took the Number 1 slot at the Box Office and pulled in an estimated $82.5 million over the four day holiday period. The movie had an early debut last Wednesday and actually took in more on its opening day than the entire weekend period that followed putting its domestic total to an estimated $175 million. And as astounding as that number sounds, that’s less than the previous installment in the franchise did in its opening weekend. However, it has only been seven months since Twilight: New Moon hit the screens so a drop-off was expected with such a short time span between movies. Also debuting strong over the weekend was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender which adapts the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. That one took no shame in taking second place at the Box Office and had an estimated $53 million in receipts over the four day holiday weekend and with its early release on Thursday has taken in an estimated $70.5 million total domestically. That’s a decent opening for the film, despite almost universally bad reviews (though our own Johnny Jay liked it), and already puts it close to the half way point of making up its $150 million budget. One of the primary complaints about the movie, though, is that it significantly diverged from its source material and this one could see a significant drop-off in attendance after its debut weekend. It has not had its international release, though, and should perform well in that market. Holding on strong against some pretty stiff competition, Toy Story 3 took the third place slot at the Box Office and brought in an estimated $42 million over the holiday weekend and edged up its worldwide gross to nearly $452 million as it quickly looks to overtake Iron Man 2 (currently at $612 million) as the Summer’s top money maker. Some might look at Twilight: Eclipse (currently at an estimated $275 million worldwide after only one weekend) as a strong candidate for top Box Office honors this Summer, but movies in that franchise tend to have a sharp drop-off after their opening whereas Toy Story 3 has more general appeal and better staying-power.

Note that these numbers are estimates of the weekend performance and the dollar amounts and position ranks will change slightly when the final tally comes in. You can see the full Box Office results from the weekend at Box Office Mojo.

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