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.