Breaking Dawn Exploding Tickets Sales Like No Other Twilight Film

According to Deadline:

The final installment of the 5-film Twilight Saga just came on tracking today. And my sources say Breaking Dawn Part 2 which opens November 16th is comping at Part 1‘s record-breaking levels. Plus advance ticket sales are running 16% ahead as well. Summit Entertainment like most studios uses several tracking services, and I’ve learned that Part 2‘s unaided is equal or ahead ofPart 1 – so that make it higher than any of the other Twilight pics. Awareness also is the highest and, in fact, already in the 90s for females. Not only is Breaking Dawn Part 2 tracking better than any other film in already or about to open in the domestic box office before mid-November but it’s even better than James Bond – 72 awareness for Skyfall vs 88 for Breaking Dawn Part 2.

After giving some more data, Deadline concludes its report saying: “Within only a few days of advance tickets going on sale October 1st, Breaking Dawn, Part 2 already represented half of Fandango’s sales for the week. Now Fandango tells me it’s 36% of today’s overall ticket sales even though it doesn’t open for 3 weeks yet outselling this weekend’s Argo, Cloud Atlas, and Silent Hill: Revelation combined.”

Breaking Dawn Should Hit 200 Million Mark By End of Weekend

Chart via Box Office Mojo

In in its entire theatrical run, Twilight didn’t get to the 200 million mark. In fairness it’s a mark that few movies, even franchise movies, ever obtain. Breaking Dawn is on course to manage this feat in 8 or 9 days after its release. If it manages it in 8 days it ties New Moon. If it manages it in 9 days it ties Eclipse.

From there it is a race to see if it can grab the highly elusive 300 million mark that few movies ever reach. Eclipse managed to reach this mark; however, it was released in IMAX which commands higher ticket prices. In case you are wondering why Breaking Dawn isn’t in IMAX it’s because the Happy Feet 3D movie is using all of those screens.

Regardless, Breaking Dawn is going to easily be a top ten movie this year even considering the upcoming Christmas release films. It may even be able to grab a top five spot.

Numbers right now will be estimates until Monday. Going by previous franchise history, the actual numbers should be slightly higher.

New Moon and Eclipse Still Hang on to Midnight Sales Record

It was widely predicted that the latest installment of the Harry Potter franchise would upset the records set by the two most recent Twilight films. However the results fell short of what was widely thought to be a shoe-in for Harry Potter to overtake New Moon. Most  industry blogs were divided 50/50 on whether it would overtake Eclipse. In the end, Harry Potter didn’t overtake either of them in midnight sales(midnight sales cover tickets sold midnight until circa 10:00am).

According to MarketWatch:

““Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I” made $24 million in its debut during the wee hours Friday, enough to pull into third place among films with midnight screenings, according to figures from box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

“Deathly Hallows” fell behind two films in the “Twilight” series. “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” still is tops with its $30 million-plus debut earlier this year on June 30. And “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” comes in second at $26.3 million for its Nov. 20, 2009 midnight release.”

Regardless of the midnight showing results, Harry Potter will undoubtedly be in the top ten films this year and in all likelihood make the top five. The franchise is also set to overtake Star Wars as the most successful film franchise at the box office. Also in fairness to the Potter chain, Eclipse opened at roughly 4,400 theaters opening day while Potter opened at roughly 4,100. (Stats via Box Office Mojo).

What will really be interesting is if Harry Potter can do two things: 1) break the $300,000,000 mark, something it has only done twice 2) beat the $317,575,550 benchmark set back in 2001 with the first Harry Potter movie. To overtake Eclipse in total sales, Harry Potter needs to come in at over $300,531,751 by the time it finishes its run.

Eclipse By The Numbers: Noon Totals and Where It’s All Headed

Our good friend Larry411 has a great article on the Eclipse box office numbers going in to the midnight opening. In about an hour (noon eastern) we’ll have some solid numbers on what Eclipse did at the midnight and early morning showings today(and we will edit this article to reflect the change). The theater in NYC where Pel was had 12:15, 12:30, and 1:00am showings…nine…count em…nine screens and they were all filled. The other thing happening here is that we will have solid numbers not just estimates on the first three days because the movie opened well in advance of the weekend when estimates only are traditionally given.

Now on to Larry’s analysis:

The Twilight Saga was the biggest opening of all time at 4416 venues. So it’s no surprise that early reports say theaters were mobbed not just in America but overseas as well.

There are a few things to watch for (click the links for daily numbers and extensive analysis). The Twilight Saga: New Moon opened on November 20, 2009 with $26.27 million from 3514 midnight screenings at 4024 locations.

The film took in $72.7M its first day, on its way to a $142.8M weekend, making it the #3 all-time and #1 non-summer opening weekend of all time. After the second weekend, its domestic total was $230.95M and worldwide was $473.95M. The film passed the $1/2 billion mark worldwide in its third weekend. After four weekends, New Moon sat at $267.32M domestic. And the film ended its fifth weekend with a total $274.6M domestic and $634.7M worldwide on its way to a current theatrical total of $296.6M domestic and $709.7M worldwide.”

See more on Larry’s site

Amanda Bell, the Twilight Examiner, also has a great article that concurs with Larry’s findings and expands more.

“All along – during the downtime between The Twilight Saga: New Moon‘s release and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse‘s – fans have been asking this question: will The Twilight Saga: Eclipse surpass the incredible numbers set forth by The Twilight Saga: New Moon?

No doubt, the biggest achievement of New Moon in the box office was to set the record for biggest opening day ever. So, the topic has definitely lingered as to whether the summer Eclipse showing will top that record.

Also, the staggering opening weekend numbers (3rd highest ever) for New Moon reached $140.7 million in the first three days. So, whether Eclipse will eclipse New Moon‘s opening weekend figures is prominent as well.

According to TheWrap.com, industry predictions give the nod to Eclipse in at least the second portion of the inquiry.”

Read more on Twilight Examiner

New Moon: The Sales Record Continues

According to Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood:

“1. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON (Summit Entertainment) Week 2 [4,042 Theaters)
Wed $14.3M, Thurs $9.2M, Fri $17.7M, Sat $16.5M
3-Day Total: $42.5M  (includes Sunday estimate) (-70%)
5-Day Total: $66M  (includes Sunday estimate)
Domestic Cume: $230.7M  (includes Sunday estimate_”

This cum (much of which is estimated because of the Thanksgiving holiday official numbers won’t come out until Monday and could go up or down) would put New Moon in the number 6 position roughly 30 million behind Star Trek, the current holder of the number 5 position.

So what does all this mean? According to Larry Richman, our favorite number analyst:

“The Twilight Saga: New Moon won its second consecutive weekend, taking in an estimated $42.5M from 4042 locations for the Friday-Sunday period, and an estimated $66M for the five-day holiday weekend from Wednesday to Sunday. This increases the film’s domestic cumulative total to $230.7M through its first 10 days of release. The current worldwide cumulative total is $362.8M. There have been no new international numbers all week so the actual total will be much higher when Summit releases updated figures later today.

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. Of course, Sunday and weekend figures can only be estimates at this point. The actual Sunday numbers aren’t 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 Friday and Saturday’s numbers and, therefore, what the weekend will look like. The actual numbers that come in on Monday are usually not too far off from the estimates made on Sunday. They usually adjust slightly up or down but are rarely far off.”

Read Larry’s day-by-day analysis here in language any non-industry person can understand.  Also follow him on Twitter!

With at least a four-month run ahead where will New Moon land?  Honestly, we have no idea, because New Moon already exceeded Lexicon staff expectations. Right now we are thinking it will finish in the number 2 or 3 position. Only time will tell.

New Moon By The Numbers

MTV talked to Fandango about the ticket buying phenomena that is The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Aside from just pure raw data about the number of seats sold, Fandango has been using a questionnaire for purchasers and shares their analysis with MTV. Here are just a few factoids:

“Obviously, ‘Twilight’ had a huge following of book readers before the first movie was released, but these results might indicate that the first movie broadened the ‘Twilight’ following and expanded its audience — and that many moviegoers started reading the books after seeing the movie.”

“68 percent of the ticket-buyers weren’t aware of the “Twilight” franchise until the first film was released in November 2008. So, in essence, only 32 percent of the fans who have bought “New Moon” tickets have been “Twilight” fans for longer than 12 months.”

“Sports-betting Web site Bookmaker.com has asked its odds-makers to determine how much “New Moon” will make in its opening weekend; 40 percent believe the film will take in somewhere between $66 million and $80 million. That total would put it on track to equal or exceed the receipts of the first film.”

There’s a whole list of other stats over on MTV.  The whole piece is, in our opinion, one of the better articles MTV has written on Twilight. It’s definitely worth a read.

Now we have to say we really agree with the article based on our very unscientific observations of who comments on our blog and forums and who we’ve seen at Twilight conventions run by three different companies this year where our staff was on the panels. We can’t count the number of people who only got into Twilight at like Christmas 2008. So often we’d meet people and have to explain that Stephenie had outtakes on her website, or they’d ask what is Midnight Sun.

The other thing about those new fans that is really cool is they all have that slightly obsessed, giddy, “I just have to share this with someone” thing that those of us who got into Twilight earlier all went through. For us it was kind of like being a high school senior and looking at a freshman who reminded us of ourselves a few years ago. It’s so cool just to see that raw enthusiasm out of people ranging from 10 to 80.  Plus these guys read 4 books in row and didn’t have to wait…not even, going to lie, Pel is slightly jealous about that.

The only downside we’ve seen is that when we now see mass gatherings of fans, the homemade tee shirts have all but disappeared. The commercial ones have taken over. We kind of miss that old school originality from back in the day when slogans like, “Edward Cullen: Cooler Than You Since 1917” were seen for the first time on a homemade shirt.

Anyway enough nostalgia before we get all weepy and start cyber hugging and singing Sarah McLachlan. We do have a poll because we are curious about some of the things in the MTV article.