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EXCLUSIVE: So many Twi-hards stood in line since Monday in advance of tonight’s Eclipse premiere that Summit Entertainment had to set up a 2nd tent city on Chick Hearn Boulevard to accommodate them all outside the Nokia Theater and L.A. live plaza. Trust me, any Hollywood studio would love to have this problem. Right now Eclipse is both Fandango’s and MovieTickets.com’s top advance ticket-seller of the year. And the third movie in the Twilight saga still has another week of ticket sales before its release date. Eclipse leads the Fandango Five with over 52% of daily ticket sales, even with strong daily sales for Toy Story 3 and Karate Kid. MovieTickets.com is also reporting Eclipse online ticketing represent over 50% of daily sales. On Fandango, Eclipse was voted “The Most Anticipated Movie Of The Summer” by the majority (32%) of Fandango moviegoers in a May 2010 poll. Now it’s been among Fandango’s Top 5 ticket-sellers on a daily basis ever since tickets first went on sale five weeks ago.
The studio isn’t playing the lowering expectations game this time around; execs know this 3rd film in the Twilight Saga is going to be huge. The only question is whether it’ll surpass the sequel New Moon which was the biggest yet. ”New Moon set the bar so high as a cultural phenomenon that Eclipse can only try to reach that number,” a Summit exec tells me. Of course it helps that, in 2009, 35% of New Moon online ticket-buyers said they became fans of the series after seeing the first movie Twilight. Now, 59% of Eclipse online ticket-buyers said they became fans of the series after seeing the first movie. Or that Entertainment Weekly, the official magazine of receptionists, has a coming cover line how Eclipse is the best of the Twilight Saga yet. Right now, 3 of the 4 major tracking services peg Eclipse to New Moon numbers. But it’s likely that Eclipse’s 6-day opening could gross anywhere from $150M-$179M. (Spider-Man 2 holds the July 4th holiday record with $180M.) All on a budget of just $68M. That fact alone is enough to make the major studio moguls weep.
More Fandango stats: Of 1,000 Eclipse online ticket-buyers,
45% plan to see the movie with a group of friends
28% plan to see it with a date or significant other.
58% plan to see it more than once.
38% say they’re more likely to repeat viewing because it’s summer
33% of respondents are 24 or younger
34% of respondents are 25-34
27% of respondents are 35-49.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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I still need to buy 15 tickets tomorrow so count me in. And I plan on watching it at least 3 times that week. I can’t help it I love the books !
Someone should make use of your excellent song Clap Your Hands…
Passionately hate Twilight but will still be seeing Eclipse, possibly more than once. Why? Because it’s a 21st century phenomenon. Brainless, granted. But that’s beside the point. Twilight is a license to print money.
Lemming get this straight. You will be going to see the movie of a series you hate because others are?
No. I am seeing it because it’s part of pop culture. I have my taste, but I’m equally curious about others’ – even if they are inferior to mine.
I hope Universal is weeping. They put all their stock in action films like The Green Zone, The Wolf Man, and Robin Hood. This small budget female centered movie is going to beat them all. I think it’s going to open to over $200 million. There is that much interest. New Moon made $142 million the first weekend and that was November without Imax. This one has Imax and Fourth of July means more movies. The Last Airbender starts the Friday after but I don’t think it can compete. There isn’t any excitement for that film. It will probably fail just like The A-Team. I’m happy to see some things changing in Hollywood. Practice writing your Eclipse breaks records post.
Howzabout you practice what you were DESTINED to do and get our dinner on the table? You can dream about your sparkle-boy vampire swooping down to whisk you away while you’re preparing our family meal of Hamburger Helper that you bought on sale at Wal-Mart.
Do you have a time machine or something? Cause you just mapped out that chicks future with surprising accuracy. Twilight fans with be the downfall of the human species 30-40 years from now.
I’m taking my whole family. I bought 20 tickets last week. I need six more because some family is coming from out of town.
The Regal Cinemas where I pre-ordered my ticket is showing Twilight and New Moon prior to the Eclipse premiere, so we purchased advance tix to those films (we also did this with New Moon).
Is this is a trend for many theaters around the country? I’d be interested to know whether that revenue goes towards Eclipse box office or not. If so – is that an artificial boost?
I know – it’s silly to do so…but we were going to wait in line anyway (might as well watch a movie), and in this case, we got and kept great seats to a sold out auditorium.
Regal Cinema in Medina OH is doing the same thing. They started selling tickets for the midnight showing prior to deciding to show Twilight & New Moon. We had bought our midnight tickets already, but went back for the tickets for the other 2. Beats standing in line in the parking lot for hours. And yes we get to keep our butts firmly in the same seats for the Eclipse midnight show. We’ll buy a couple of the super-sized popcorn with the free refills…that should carry the family through 3 movies without us having to take out a loan to buy refreshments. Plus At 11:30 I’ll be thanking God I’m not part of the stampede for seats. As of today they’re still selling the triple movie pkg ($30).
Not a surprise to anyone who visited Comic-Con in the last 15 years.
Weep Universal moguls weep. Fangirls are here and they want Twilight. Universal spawned three flops with action guy stars and this movie will outgross them all on a $65 million budget. Summit even made enough that they could buy the Oscar this year. They got Bill Condon, an Oscar winner, to direct the last two films. I’m sure they are the envy of the major studios. I know the Christopher Nolan/Dark Knight fanboys are quaking in their boots. Be very afraid.
Yes, Nolan fans should be afraid of likely Oscar nod for a Twilight film. OK.
As someone who is waiting for Inception, I’d like to say that I am not quaking in my boots and am not afraid… at all. I really don’t care how much money Inception will make and if it will beat Twilight. I highly doubt it will, I don’t expect it to do as amazing as The Dark Knight. Not cause I’m some hard-core Dark Knight fan or anything, I just don’t see it happening.
I don’t think Universal even looked at adapting the property. And if any studio mogul should weep about the loss, it’s the idiots at MTV and Paramount for passing on it.
And how is this franchise going to make Christopher Nolan/Batman fans shake in their boots? The franchise may break opening-day records, but it doesn’t have legs like any Pixar movie or for that matter, “Avatar” and “The Dark Knight.”
I expect it to be out of the Top 10 when July 16 rolls around.
“I know the Christopher Nolan/Dark Knight fanboys are quaking in their boots. Be very afraid.”
Why would they be afraid or quaking in their boots? Are you joking? You must be smoking some Canadian green laced with crack.
Twilight is a movie, Inception is a film. There is a big difference and it makes no sense to pin them against one another. No Chris Nolan fan cares that much about ticket sales. They care about a good films that are well written and acted, not how much money it makes or how long people camp out to buy tickets or any kind of award. His fans would rather have a great film that makes no money at all, than have it be terrible and make a ton of money.
The only reason I personally would like to see Inception do better than Twilight at the box office is so the major studios can realize that intelligent, high quality films can make just as much money as the sappy, poorly written, poorly acted, dumbed down, joe popcorn movies. Therefore, we would see less of those crap movies in the future. But I really doubt Inception will outsell Twilight, unfortunately. Movies like Twilight, A-Team, Prince Of Persia, and Jonah Hex all insult the intelligence of Americans. They have no depth and no soul. They are all flash and no substance.
I concur.
And I’ve seen all the crapola summer films you just listed. Except the Twilight ones, which I won’t be seeing. But to make up for it, I’m gonna get a horde of folks to join me for Inception, and see it at least 3 times.
Salud!
And will someone talk about the showbiz potential of the int’l soccer (futbol) players? The media has outsexed them to the next level…
Why should we be afraid of a P.O.S. franchise that has massive appeal to a bunch of dumb, tween fangirls? True, the Twilight franchise is a massive money machine, but the Dark Knight will still stand tall over this franchise when the dust settles. After all, I recall the Dark Knight not only breaking the box office bank, but also winning critical acclaim from all corners, including an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor? The only critical acclaim Twilight will receive is critical condemnation. The only film awards the Twilight franchise can hope to aspire to are Razzies. Yes, that’s right Twitards – your franchise is a LAUGHING STOCK to the rest of us.
Don’t forget the ‘prestigious’ MTV Movie Awards, which Twilight wins every single category that it’s nominated in. The fact that MTV is the only organization that even recognizes Twilight is an indication of how irrelevant and how much of a joke the Movie Awards has become. IMO, getting all those Moon Men is worse than getting Razzies.
I would take 20 MTV Awards over an Oscar any day, oh wait no I wouldn’t, nor would anyone else.
They can get an oscar director, but that doesn’t mean it will win. There are plenty of good movies out there and breaking dawn won’t be one of them. Sorry to spoil your dreams. I am a girl. I don’t like this shiet, cause it doesn’t really show love. haha, On the otherhand, I am a proud supporter of Nolan and i am bringing people with me to watch this film
I can’t wait .
Choke on that.
Supporter too. I care about the film. I want to see it. I must admit i do hope it makes as much money, but to prove and tell that good movies always deserve the money they make. If it does a fail, ok that will upset me, but nothing can be changed right? But An OSCAR is good enough for me. Oscar . years from now twilight won’t be even rememberd it might, but only to negative views. your arguments are pretty pointless twilght people.
An oscar for Mr.. Nolan in which he should earn is all i am looking foward to it. The praise and the critical reception is what matters to me. How many people will actually say it’s a good movie.
july 16
see you there.
Eclipse will beat New Moon in opening and total gross. It’s going to be the biggest movie of the year hands down.
No it won’t. It will open huge but tail off once the initial rush is over.
Biggest opening, yes! Toy Story 3 or Harry Potter will be biggest grossing moive of the year.
Um, no. Why? Huge opening weekend, huge second weekend drop. Just like New Moon.
Toy Story 3 will be the biggest movie of the year. And deservedly so. Because unlike those shitty Twilight movies, it’s actually a great movie.
Kids have better taste in film than tweens/young females? It seems so. Or maybe studio heads produce only shit for tweens/young females?
If you’re talking about worldwide grosses, I think it’s going to have a hard time beating Alice in Wonderland. It will be interesting to see if, after the first weekend, the fans are seeing Eclipse more than once with the higher 3D ticket prices. Twilight opened to $69 million and was down 62% the next weekend. New Moon opened to $188 million and was down 72% the next weekend. Expect Eclipse to open big and have a massive drop.
Yeah, these movies are extremely front-loaded, so they might have huge openings, but that usually means nothing when it comes to final grosses.
So somehow Summit has found even more lonely women to suck into the Twilight universe. Sooner or later they’ve got to run out of those, don’t they?
That’s a nasty, sexist attitude to take.
Your right. It’s like porn for fat, lonely teenage girls.
Demand better films. The series is hack work.
Bob, YOU are the HACK. Any man who can post a comment like that is a HACK man.
So if you think Twilight is hack filmaking, well then, you my friend are the hack work of what a true quality human being should be.
The only difference is that Twilight apparently has millions of fans and you have a fan club made up of yourself.
These movies are completely inept from an acting, writing, directing standpoint. I understand that the filmmakers have to be faithful to the source material (or encourage the wrath of millions of deluded girls and frustrated housewives) but – gawd – the scripts for these films are atrocious. If they weren’t ‘Twilight’ screenplays, they’d be laughed off the desk of a CE and tossed into the slush pile. Robert Pattinson is probably a good actor, but he’s ham-strung by the wooden dialogue he’s asked to deliver. It’s embarassing and cringe-worthy at times. Kristen Stewart has really never been great – she may have been better as a kid, but she’s growing into one of the most awkward thespians I’ve ever seen on screen. She’s just as uncomfortable and mumble-mouthed on camera as she is in real life.
My guess is that Summit just micro-manages this franchise, effectively numbing any talent that Hardwick/Weitz/Slade have. The films are dreary and flat to look at. An amazing feat for a glossy studio production (rumored budget for this one is at 80 mil). And who okays that sub SyFy CGI?
It’s a phenomenon that I don’t get, and I understand that these movies print money…but couldn’t Summit actually make GOOD films out of those books? Was it that hard?
The films are horrid because the books they’re based on are horrid. But you’ve gotta love the business model. They gross hundreds of millions, yet cost less than $100 million to make. So with the industry in the shape it’s in, expect a lot more of this kind of stuff.
The only reason I sat through the last two movies was because a friend had a Rifftrax.com audio commentary playing through the damn things. Without those hilarious audio tracks, I could never have survived those rotten movies.
I hear the books are actually not so great as well. Why they got so popular is beyond me. So it would seem the problem is the movies are based on bad books, which results in a bad movie, but they can’t change anything from the books or else there will be a GIGANTIC backlash.
“It’s a phenomenon that I don’t get, and I understand that these movies print money…but couldn’t Summit actually make GOOD films out of those books? Was it that hard?”
Yep–because the basic material is lousy and making good movies out of it would mean major changes, which means alienating the TWILIGHT fan base…which means risking failure. The TWILIGHT series is a unique example of “devil’s candy” (material that looks cinematic but has too many problems to make a good movie.) It’s so awful that its flaws cancel out anything cinematic about it…however the fan base is so huge and devoted, its quality (and that of the movies) doesn’t ultimately matter.
AMEN, BROTHER.
I couldn’t even get through the first one. It was like an episode of “Dawson’s Creek” with even worse acting.
Maybe they should have made the last movie into a trilogy.
I just can’t believe this. Is this really what we have come to? If I were an Extraterrestrial who visited Earth and I saw all these people camped out and waiting in front of a building. I would think to myself, “Woah, what’s going on here? Is it a speech by a world renowned astrophysicist? Or maybe the unveiling of the worlds first zero-point energy device. What could be so important that all these people would gather and wait for?” Well, it’s Twilight. Humankind should be ashamed of itself.
32% is not a majority of Fandango voters. It may be a plurality.
I can understand people watching this, but enjoying the Twilight movies? What has this world come too? Wouldn’t be surprised that with Imax the film’s final tally should be around $315-350 million. Thankfully it’ll have a giant drop in its second week just like the first two Twilight movies. Oh and @Canadagreen, I’m eagerly anticipating Inception, yet I’m not quaking in my boots because I know that Inception will have something that any Twilight film will ever have: quality. And just wait, I bet that Harry Potter will end up beating this record this November.
“I bet that Harry Potter will end up beating this record this November.”
And a new Transformers movie would beat both of them. So your argument here is — what exactly?
Transformers went down the shitter with “Revenge of the Fallen”. There is no bringing that one back. Sorry.
It was that hard. Meyer has too much creative control. Do you really think there’d be sparkling vampires if Meyer wasn’t forcing that in?
Did it ever occur to you that it might be her “creative controls” or input that has made the franchise so successful with fans? Why does Hollywood always assume they know better than the creators of the property?
The films are fun. Pattinson is interesting to watch. Stewart is supposed to be smitten, tentative, vulnerable. More power to them. The dreary look is on purpose and works. The innocence of the stories have a certain charm that I find appealing. Apparently I’m not alone. Not everything is Shakespeare. Not everything is Dark Night. Some people like to relax and watch something lighter once in a while. Like this.
(I’m not in the Twilight demographic. Not even close.)
Yeah, who needs quality when mediocrity will do?
Fun? Fun? These movies are anything but fun. They are a bunch of utterly boring snoozefests. With the exception of Michael Sheen in New Moon, every other actor sleepwalks right through them. They might as well be comatose. There wouldn’t be any difference. But hey, at least they get a nice paycheck.
Well, since most of them had already bought their 20 tickets then hopefully it will start to die from the second weekend.
Wow the little NERDS are always present spewing hates!!!
I was one of the millions who loved the books and I’m not ashamed to admit it. However, I won’t be one of the millions rushing to see Eclipse. I watched the first two movies and couldn’t believe that the fans loved them. I felt like I was watching a different movie than they did. The scripts are DREADFUL. Melissa Rosenberg doesn’t capture the true essence of the books in any way. There are a lot of fans who agree with me, but since Summit knows that fans are just happy to have ANY sort of adaptation and will take what they can get, Summit doesn’t bother to try to create a GOOD movie.
I hope that 10 years from now they are remade into something awesome.
Twilight was so rushed and cheesy and awkward, but it DID get one of the key scenes in the book nearly perfect so it was nowhere near the ridiculous crapfest that was New Moon.
Rosenberg is too much of a “Team Taylor” fan and tweaks the scrips to give the ego maniac Lautner more screen time and a better storyline. She takes way too many creative liberties with the source material. So many people say that Stephenie had too much control and that’s not the case – I’m not her biggest fan but I wish she had written the scripts because she’d be able to capture the true feel of the books.
I won’t buy a single ticket to this one. I love this particular book too much to have the movie ruin it.
Im a Twilight fan as well, and i agree with you one hundred percent. The movies are shit. And because there are so many fans who would love any kind of adaptation, Summit picked it up and ruined it. I wish Stephenie would have written the script and picked the cast because i don’t like any of them.
Inception is the film of the year and i am a girl.
YES! THANK YOU, SHIRLEY!
It will do good but it will not beat The Last Airbender. All the kids /families will have seen Toy Story by the time this is released and they will be craving something new. And what family is going to take little kids to a vampire movie? The Last Airbender will beat Twilight for the weekend.
I’m sorry but this series has no “teeth.” I’d rather go back and watch Dracula, Blade, or Interview with the Vampire.
I saw a T shirt the other day that said, “And then Buffy staked Edward. The end.” The most disturbing thing to me about the Twilight craze is how completely it rips off the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Except Twilight has taken out all of the female empowerment elements Joss Whedon included in Buffy, which was a Peabody award winning show. Bella isn’t a strong independent woman. She’s mostly passive. She’s a dull and unremarkable girl who has somehow inexplicably attracted these two gorgeous himbos to fight over her. Twilight is a lot more popular than Buffy ever was, which kind of scares me. Are young women rejecting a story of a powerful woman for a story with a much more victimized damsel in distress?
This will definitely break over 200 million the first six days. Hated New Moon, but shit if this doesn’t look like a vast improvement.
Die? New Moon made $709 million worldwide and is one of the top selling DVD’s of the year. Men love to come hate on Twilight, like Transformers or Indy Jones is better. Puhlease, spare me. Eclipse is going to be big. Not all Twilight fans are moms who shop at Wal-Mart. There are powerful business women that see this as their Godiva. It’s a guilty pleasure, but still a pleasure. If some of these so called men weren’t watching football and playing fantasy baseball 24/7, maybe their women wouldn’t be obsessed with a sparkly vampire and a muscled werewolf. I’m going to see Eclipse at least 3 times. There are two more Twilight films and it’s only getting more popular. I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon. You can’t click on a website without seeing a Twilight related story because it’s a phenomenon.
Someone just got dumped.
Or it’s that time of the month.
popular but not any better
remember that.
Bella is not a damsel in distress. Who’s going to fight when your gorgeous boyfriend is built like marble and can’t die. I’d let him do it. Also, in the last book Bella becomes the hero. Twilight is much bigger than Buffy ever was because the romance is stronger. The top movies of all time, like Avatar and Titanic have that Romeo/Juliet style romance at their centers. The Twilight saga has the same. I see this easily doing over $200 million over the holiday weekend. My husband and I have a bet on if it will beat Iron Man 2′s opening. I think I can win. I don’t understand the hate for Twilight. The stars are great to their fans and the fandom does a lot of good stuff for charity. It’s a community like any other.
Those grapes probably didn’t taste good anyway.