Breaking Dawn Holding Its Own on Worst Box Office Weekend in Three Years

According to CBS News:

“The audience certainly is available. Unfortunately, they have not come out in the numbers they have in the past,” said Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros., which released “New Year’s Eve,” whose cast includes Sarah Jessica Parker, Halle Berry, Robert De Niro, Ashton Kutcher, Hilary Swank and Jessica Biel. “I’m hoping this is just a glitch, and starting next weekend, the box-office will expand.”

Next weekend begins Hollywood’s end-of-year blockbuster frenzy, with the debuts of Robert Downey Jr.’s “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” and the family sequel “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.”

Charlize Theron’s comic drama “Young Adult” goes wide after starting in limited release this past weekend, while Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” launches in huge-screen IMAX theaters before expanding to general release the following week.

Studio bosses generally blame bad weekends on bad movies. Yet while critics trashed “New Year’s Eve” and “The Sitter,” a lineup of well-reviewed, seemingly must-see family films that include “The Muppets,” “Arthur Christmas” and “Hugo” so far have done modest business at best.

At No. 1 the last three weekends was “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1,” whose audience is mainly women. “Breaking Dawn” fell to No. 3 this weekend with $7.9 million, raising its domestic total to $259.5 million.

Behind “Breaking Dawn” has been that rush of family flicks, with nothing fresh out there on the action front in more than a month.

“That has created a major vacuum in the marketplace, not serving that bread-and-butter audience of Hollywood,” Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian said.

As you can see in the above chart from Box Office Mojo, Breaking Dawn is strongly holding on to its position of the number three movie of the year. It’s unlikely that it will overtake either the number one or number two slot, but depending if Summit pulls its box office run early for a Valentine’s Day DVD release (the other films had until mid March) It will probably cap out in the 280 million range.

Breaking dawn will certainly not drop out of the top ten. the question is can any of the Christmas blockbusters like the next Sherlock Holmes installment overtake it.

Breaking Dawn Still #1 At Box Office

For those of you who are interested in the numbers, Breaking Dawn Part 1 took in another $5.5 million this last weekend and managed to stay on top at the movies over The Muppets and Hugo.  EW.Com is reporting that even though this was a significant drop from the previous weekend sales, it’s still a considerable amount when faced with the fact that this was one of the slowest weekends at the box office.  This puts the totals for Breaking Dawn Part 1 at over $247 million in the US according to BoxOfficeMojo.

We want to know from you – how many times have you seen Breaking Dawn and will you go again?

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.

Eclipse Closes Its Box Office Run at $300,531,751 Domestic

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According to Box Office Mojo, Eclipse has finally ended its run in theaters with a total of $300,531,751 in the domestic market. International sales still continue, and there are some countries where it has not even opened yet!

Eclipse was the first women-driven film to hit the elusive 300K mark since Titanic back in 1997. It’s a mark that very few films ever hit, let alone a film that is predominantly driven by female dollars.

The $300,531,751 will easily put Eclipse into the top 10 films of the year, and in all likelihood it will stay in the top five.  right now it is in fourth position behind Toy Story 3, Alice in Wonderland, and Iron Man 2. The only film that opens between now and the end of the year that is likely to overtake the Eclipse tally is the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The summer release was an interesting experiment since the other films opened at Thanksgiving time.  Eclipse certainly benefited by a summer of lackluster films that had lots of PR, but in the end didn’t live up to the hype. In short it lucked out by not having lots of competing films. Rather than see a movie that got panned, people went back and saw Eclipse again. Granted, folks tended to see it more than once anyway, but the movie choices or lack thereof this summer certainly helped.

To summarize the previous films box office totals:

Twilight: number 7 film of the year in 2008    $192,769,854

New Moon: number 4 film of the year in 2009 $296,623,634

One day release of back-to-back Twilight and New Moon: number 131 of the year $2,385,237

E!: The Finalish Word on Eclipse

E! takes a look at the money Eclipse is earning in a summer where most intended blockbusters have positively fizzled.

A lot has been made that Eclipse isn’t living up to expectations. Unfortunately the numbers disagree. Initially, statistically New Moon made more; however New Moon experienced significant box office drop offs that Eclipse hasn’t. For example the first week that Eclipse made less than 1 million dollars on a given day was this past week. New Moon on the other hand, 30 days into its release, had multiple days with less than a million dollar take.

According to E!:

“With a $290.2 million domestic take, as of Wednesday, Eclipse is the third-biggest grosser of the summer, and the fourth biggest of the year. Worldwide, it’s at about $650 million, which makes it the year’s biggest 2-D movie so far, and third biggest overall, behind the 3-D-assisted Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3.

In short, Eclipse was, as expected, big.

“When you consider that the film cost under $70 million, it will probably, along with Toy Story 3, end up as one of the most profitable films of the year,” Exhibitor Relations’ box office analyst Jeff Bock said in an email.”

The only place where Eclipse is not coming in as big as New Moon is in the foreign box office. That seems to be accounted for by fluctuating exchange rates. If you’ve traveled overseas lately you know what that is like.

“Summit exec Richie Fay said Friday he expects Eclipse to keep the edge domestically. Worldwide, he was less sure, saying foreign-exchange rates may cut into Eclipse‘s bottom line, although the film’s overseas attendance has been virtually even with that of New Moon‘s.

“We’re not really looking at franchise fatigue,” Fay said. “I think our audience has remained relatively loyal. It might have [even] expanded a little bit.”

See more on E!

Eclipse reached the 290 million mark domestically this week.  New Moon ended its box office run with 296 million.  We’re going to predict that by next weekend Eclipse will reach the same box office draw as as did New Moon.  Additionally, we are going to go out on a limb and state that we think Eclipse will reach the elusive 300 million mark, something that few films reach. If it does so, it will mark the first time since Titanic that a primarily women’s draw feature will have reached this mark.

June 30-July 3 Eclipse Box Office Tally Is 161 Million

According to Gossip Cop:

“The latest numbers are in, and Eclipse will rake in an estimated $89 million for the holiday weekend.

So far the film has made $161 million in North America and is expected to earn $181 million by the end of the holiday weekend.

Internationally, since opening in June 30, Eclipse has grossed an estimated $100.2 million from 42 territories.”

You can see the full evolution of the numbers here.

How does Eclipse rank overall this year? Box Office Mojo has the chart. It hasn’t been updated since Friday, but assuming the estimates are correct, than Eclipse should easily move ahead of Clash of the Titans and be in fifth place when solid numbers are release Monday afternoon.

New Moon capped out it’s nearly 6-month box office run at approximately 296 million the question is, “Can Eclipse pull off the same or exceed that total?” Many franchise movies put out stunning numbers, but they don’t always top themselves film to film. For example the Harry Potter films have always done well but the two most highest grossing film remains the first one.

Eclipse Breaks Wednesday Release Record

According to Box Office Mojo Eclipse has set a Wednesday release sales record. Yesterday we covered the sales figures that covered midnight to 3:00am where Eclipse set a 30 million dollar sales record in that midnight release catergory. Now the figures reflect midnight through 11:59pm yesterday, June 30.

“The Twilight Saga: Eclipse drained more of its opening day demand with its midnight opening than The Twilight Saga: New Moon did. Despite setting the midnight record with over $30 million, Eclipse’s full day came in at $68.5 million, falling short of New Moon’s $72.7 million record ($26.3 million of which from its midnight launch).

Playing on approximately 8,000 screens at an opening-record 4,416 locations, Eclipse still had a phenomenal debut, setting two other records. The vampire romance sequel boasted the largest Wednesday gross of all time, surpassing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’s $62 million. It also logged the top-grossing summer day ever, surpassing The Dark Knight’s $67.2 million.

Overall, Eclipse posted the second highest-grossing single day of all time, behind only its predecessor.

See more on Box Office Mojo

Box Office Mojo: Eclipse, 30 Million Record Setting Midnight Tally

According to BoxOffice Mojo:

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse ripped into the record books with its midnight launch, grossing over $30 million at more than 4,000 theaters. That surpassed The Twilight Saga: New Moon‘s previous benchmark of $26.3 million. Included in Eclipse‘s sum was a new IMAX midnight milestone of over $1 million at 192 venues, topping Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen‘s $959,000.

The vampre(sic) romance sequel had already cast the widest opening net ever, biting into a whopping 4,416 locations (more theaters are expected to be added on Friday). Iron Man 2 previously held that title with 4,380 locations, while Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince holds the record for highest location count ever at 4,455. Eclipse‘s count includes 193 IMAX venues, which is just shy of Shrek Forever After‘s 194 record.”

See more on Box Office Mojo

The thing to keep in mind is that this figure only counts sales in the USA made through 3:00am this morning. It does not count the sales that are picked up during the day today through 11:59pm this evening.  Once those figures come in tomorrow afternoon to reflect the first day’s complete total that number should be $150,000,000. This will solidly put Eclipse opening in the top ten movies of the year.

The big question is going to be if Eclipse can get to the 300,000,000 million mark. New Moon was just shy at circa 296,000,000. No matter what it is going to continues to smash records for what is a predominately female driven enterprise.