Entertainment

New Moon brings in $140 million opening weekend

To many people, Nov. 20 was more than just any ordinary day. 

 Tickets were bought months ahead; the anxiety built up as it got closer to midnight.  It was time – time for the release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Summit Entertainment now officially estimates the movie took in $140.7 million from 4,024 theaters on opening weekend. 

 This puts the film in third place for all-time opening weekends, behind The Dark Knight ($158.4 million) and Spider-Man 3 ($151.1 million) and ahead of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($135.6 million).

The film also hauled in $118.1 million from 25 foreign countries, for a worldwide total of $258.8 million. 

It was the number-one biggest, non-summer opening weekend and the biggest box office opening for an independent film. New Moon also broke the record for fastest to reach $100 million, beating The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3.

As a result, the female-orientated flick not only defeated The Dark Knight for top notch of North American one-day box office, but also broke the midnight showing record previously held by Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince with $26.3 million.

Some international regions have yet to release the film. Sources expects New Moon to eventually pass $500 million worldwide.

Twilight ended its run with $385 million.

New Moon is a Summit Entertainment production and is based on a series of four novels by author Stephenie Meyer. It was directed by Chris Weitz instead of the director of the first movie, Catherine Hardwicke. However, the movie is exceptionally faithful to the 2008 beginnings.

In the second movie, the romance between mortal and vampire soars to a new level as Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) delves deeper into the mysteries of the supernatural world she yearns to become part of, only to find herself in greater peril than ever before.

No spoilers.  You’re going to have to either see the movie or read the books.
The movie had all aspects of the book right on point, unlike Twilight where people were disappointed – some things were left out of the movie that were in the book.