Variety reports that Twilight: New Moon has set the all-time midnight opening record, raking in $26.3 million at the 12:01 am showings across 3,514 theaters.. To put this in perspective The Dark Knight made $18.4 million on July 18, 2008 and Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince made $22.2 million on July 15, 2009. Fandango is also reporting the film is selling 10 tickets per second on their site. When it comes to weekend grossed the first Twilight had a 49% drop from Friday to Saturday compared to The Dark Knight which only had a 29% drop over the same time frame. I don’t see New Moon breaking the opening weekend gross record of $158.4 million, but it may come close. In other news The Blind Side is set to open at a fairly nice $18-22 million weekend, while the original Twilight shows last night grossed $1.3 million.
We normally don’t post box office reports, but damn, this record is crazy. I fully believe it will drop heavy after all the fans have seen it, and it certainly isn’t something that will warrant repeat viewings.
Are you surprised by the massive gross? Will it be the highest grossing flick of the year?