Eclipse Officially Hits the Quarter of a Billion Dollars Mark!

It’s official. The Twilight Saga:Eclipse has grossed a quarter of a billion dollars, domestic and closing in at half a billion dollars worldwide. Are you surprised? Hale no! Twilight Saga author, Stephenie Meyer’s vision continues to hold its own after its 3rd week at the box office.

Final box office estimates are in for Friday, July 16. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse took in $4.5M from 4,001 domestic locations for a per theater average of $1,125. This represents a 30.8% increase from Thursday and a 59.3% decrease from last Friday. Eclipse now has a cumulative domestic total of $255.871M after 17 days in release.

For those comparing the films in The Twilight Saga, it should be noted that Eclipse is once again ahead of New Moon in cumulative domestic totals over time. At this point in its release history (after 17 days) New Moon had taken in $255,363,052. Eclipse is now at $255.871M. Both films hit the $250M mark on the 16th day.

Keeping track of records, the film with the least number of days to reach $250M was The Dark Knight, which hit $261,847,503 after eight days. New Moon is in 13th place, having taken 16 days to reach $251,530,186. Eclipse lands just behind it in 14th place, taking 16 days to reach $251,371,417. This puts the film ahead of Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and Iron Man 2, which all took 17 days to hit $250M.

So far, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has set all-time box office records for Opening Wednesdays, Single Day Wednesday Gross (non-adjusted), and Single Day Wednesday Gross (adjusted for inflation). It is in second place for Opening Day Gross, Single Day Gross, and Non-Opening Thursday Gross. Release records include Widest Releases, Widest Independent Releases, Widest Opening Independent Releases, Widest PG-13 Rated Openings, and Widest PG-13 Rated Releases.

There’s been quite a bit of discussion online regarding the film’s box office success. In particular, I wonder about the fairness of comparing the Twilight films against each other. The validity of judging Eclipse vs. New Moon is questionable given their strikingly different release schedules. As I’ve been saying since it opened, the idea was not to compete against or beat New Moon’s early numbers. That may be a goal of some people but the idea is to make money, and maybe set some records in the process.

First, there is no way that a “weekend” that begins on a Wednesday can be compared to a “normal” 3-day weekend (when New Moon opened). At that point New Moon had been in theaters 10 days while Eclipse had been out for 12 days. So any comparison between the two based on how many “weekends” it’s been out simply isn’t valid. Next, look at the time of year the two films were released. New Moon came out during the Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday season. It’s a big time of year for Hollywood but still doesn’t compare to summer, when they put out their “tentpole” films — the potential blockbusters that will keep the studios in the black for another year. The competition is much more fierce beginning Memorial Day weekend through the 4th of July. It’s simply a different marketplace.

Cah-ching! Is all I’m going to say. Check out all of the dollar amounts, facts and figures here.

(Source:IFAThanks, Vamp Wannab!)

Category: EclipseMovie.org, Featured News