Articles

November 16, 2012
 

“Breaking Dawn 2” At Midnight: A Record… Sort Of

 

The final chapter in the TWILIGHT saga, BREAKING DAWN PART 2, began its swoop through the boxoffice last night, and earned $30.4M.  This is, unquestionably, a ton of money, and technically–very narrowly–a record for the Twilight franchise, just barely beating out Breaking Dawn Part 1‘s $30.3M (although nowhere near the all-time midnight record $43.5M for Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2).  However, for the first time the figure includes Thursday 10PM shows as well as midnight, so on a per-show basis, the “record” doesn’t really hold up.  Here are the remaining weekend records in the land of Twilight, all of them set by 2009’s New Moon:

Opening Day (including the previous midnight):  $72.7M

Saturday:  $42.3M

Sunday:  $27.8M

Weekend Total:  $142.8M

We’ll know soon enough if Breaking Dawn 2 is really on a record-setting pace, or if some measure of Bella, Edward and Jacob fatigue has at long last set in.



About the Author

Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."