Holy Crap! New Moon is huge…

Updated on November 23, 2009 By Ken Begg 23 Comments

The sequel (and, presuming they follow the novels, second of four films) really hit its stride at the box office this weekend.  Although it ultimately failed to beat the first weekend takes of The Dark Knight or Spider-Man 3, well, those films each cost about $200 million to make, while New Moon cost $50 million.  So I’d say the producers of the latter were entirely satisfied.

The film opened last Friday, technically, with nationwide midnight shows on Thursday night.  Over $26 million was made on these alone, leading to a complete Friday take of over $72 million.  I think that beat Dark Knight for the first day, if not the first weekend.  By Sunday, if estimates hold, the film dragged in a whopping $140 million.  Twilight opened with about $70 for the entire first weekend, and wrapped up with about $191 million total domestic.  Obviously this is going to be rather better than that.  Meanwhile, the film also $118 million overseas, for a ONE WEEKEND take of nearly $260 million.

Reviews were mixed, but missing the point.  Although some actually women seem to be going to and enjoying these films, the fact is that they are aimed at young teen girls.  If they’re happy, then the movies are doing their job.  Yes, it would be nice if the films were really good in a general sense, but yeah, a lot of Titanic really sucked, but it aimed at the same audience as New Moon and made over a billion dollars.

Meanwhile, the third chapter is due out next summer already.  I hope Iron Man 2 isn’t released right on top of it.

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  • fish eye no miko

    Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.
    I wonder how Avatar‘s gonna do…

  • Ericb

    From what I’ve seen of the previews I’m a bit wary of Avatar. How much do you want to bet that there will be a Wise Old Alien (or maybe a Wise Hot Young Female Alien) who will take the protagonist on a vision quest. I’ll be the aliens have excellent tracking skills as well.

  • Ericb

    Oh and I hope Cameron has made some kind of deal with Gert Oswald, the guy who wrote the Outer Limits Episode “The Chamerlon” (here’s the wikipedia description “A flying saucer has landed in a remote part of the United States and wiped out a military patrol sent to investigate. Concerned that the saucer contains nuclear material, the authorities decide on a wild scheme: send Mace, an alienated CIA daredevil, to infiltrate the ship. Genetically modified to pass as an alien, Mace finds that he is beginning to think as an alien, and begins to question his allegiance—and his very nature”) or he mwy find himself in the same situation he has with Harlan Ellison and “the Terminator.”

  • Ericb

    oops, make that Robert Towne, Lou Morheim and Joseph Stefano.

  • Elizabeth

    Got it in one, Ken. Whatever you can say about the quality of the books and movies, and it’s been said repeatedly, you can’t deny that they just work. Bella Swan is an everygirl protagonist with multiple exotic, handsome admirers. You really don’t need much finesse or artistic ability to get girls interested in that. Hell, I am absolutely not the target audience, and even I can see the appeal from the other end of this ten-foot pole with which I am not touching Twilight. Gorgeous men who could have anybody they want, desperately in love with me because I’m so great? Yes, please.

  • Terrahawk

    From what I hear, a lot of women were going to New Moon as well. Either way, it is hitting the Titanic demographic, young, stupid girls. Just like Transformers hit the young, stupid guys demographic.

    If Iron Man 2 is scheduled for the same time, I figure the date is already being erased and moved.

    Can someone tell me how Ellison won his case? I know there are some similarities, but the stories are different. I mean most of story telling is taking an older concept and changing it.

    Avatar, to use the current phrase, looks like Dances with Wolves…IN SPACE!!!! Technically the film may be brilliant in 3-D (in 2-D it looks well done but not groundbreaking). Story wise, it looks like a continuation of the path he took with The Abyss. Military and government bad, aliens good. Aliens had that some but that movie had characters and not caricatures. You could reasonably deduce that Burke acted alone. I don’t know if I want to spend my money on a film that is a moral sermonizing marathon.

  • fish eye no miko

    “Military and government bad, aliens good. Aliens had that some”

    Where in Aliens is it suggested, “Aliens = good”? And the military wasn’t particularly demonized, either. And if you just meant “gov’t = bad”, the first Alien was probably even worse about that, so you can’t really blame Cameron for simply using a plot aspect that already existed. And, actually, it’s not the government doing this, it’s the company they work for.

    Oddly enough, I’m reminded of Starship Troopers (the movie). The whole, “we act like they aliens are in the wrong, when in fact, we’re the aggressor” thing (though I understand it was somewhat unclear in ST).

    I have to admit, I really love the design of the aliens… that alone kinda makes me want to go see it.

  • Ericb

    Avatar also reminds me of the Evil Empire vs the Ewoks.

  • Avatar could be the absolute greatest movie ever. (Although it won’t be; no American director since the collapse of the studio system has gotten better as he’s gotten older, save Clint Eastwood, who voluntarily works like he IS still under the old studio system; meanwhile, Cameron’s been in decline ever since Aliens). I don’t care. I’m sorry, no film can possibly justify a budget of half a billion dollars. I realize that the studio is “only” on the hook for about half that, which means it’s actually possible the film will turn a profit for them, assuming the worldwide gross hits over $500–unless Cameron also has a crazy first dollar deal.

    Still, half a billion dollars. It’s madness. And if it tanks, it could be the first film since Cutthroat Island to destroy a studio. Even that is beside the point. I’ll say it again: No movie is worth half a billion dollars.

  • Ericb

    And that’s probably not even including the advertising budget which I’m sure is huge.

  • Terrahawk

    Fish, I was just pointing out that that seems to be his progression. I know the aliens weren’t listed as good although Weaver has the line about the aliens not messing each other over for a percentage. In Aliens it (gov’t, rich, military are evil and the Other are good) wasn’t a huge theme but it was seeping in there. It’s been a bigger piece in later years. I love Aliens so it’s not a knock on the film, just an observation.

    Actually, I find the design of the aliens in Avatar to be pedestrian. Smurfy Cat People.

    ST, the book, never had humanity as the aggressor. It was more of an inability to communicate with the bugs that led to the war.

    Even that is beside the point. I’ll say it again: No movie is worth half a billion dollars.

    Avatar has all the hallmarks of a director vanity project. Vanity projects rarely turn out well. And Cameron has continued to deteriorate since Aliens. He needs limits, like most artists, and since then, he’s had fewer and fewer.

  • why would it be bad if Iron Man 2 is released on top of it? Surely they are not aimed at the exact same audience.

  • fish eye no miko

    Terrahawk said: “Actually, I find the design of the aliens in Avatar to be pedestrian. Smurfy

    Aide from being blue, how are they “Smurfy”?

    “Cat People.”

    That’s part of why I like them.

  • Ericb

    Any chance of these Twilight films being given the Jabootu treatment?

  • OTL

    Terrahawk: from what I understand, Ellison won his lawsuit against Cameron when crew on the set quoted him as saying he had “borrowed” from some old Outer Limits episodes (specifically, Ellison’s “Soldier” and “Demon with a Glass Hand”), thus proving the similarities were not coincidental at all.

    Of course, now Cameron is going to face a lawsuit for ripping off Eric Cartman’s “Dances with Smurfs”, but whatever… :D

  • Well, I haven’t seen them, so it’s hard to say.

  • MarshallDog

    My wife wonders how they are going to do the fourth book in the Twilight series without it being rated R. I said they’d be stupid to make a rated R Twilight movie because it might deflate their target demographic. But apparently **SPOILER** most of that book deals with a horrific gory birth of a vampire baby where the mother vomits blood and breaks her own spine from culvulsing. How much of that can they leave in to be sure the movie doesn’t totally suck? What level of violence is acceptable before you go beyond PG-13? I suppose if they left out all the swearing they could put in as much violence as they want, like Dark Knight did.

  • Ericb

    The Twilight Vamps reproduce like plain old mammals? I shudder to think what they nurse their babies on.

  • P Stroud

    Cameron depicted the military pretty poorly in Abyss, but refrained from doing so in True Lies. I don’t think one can draw too many conclusions about him from the movies he’s released. It’ll be interesting to see how Avatar come out. He’s got a tough row to hoe to beat out District9 which IMHO is the best scifi movie I’ve seen in years.

    Not trying to hijack the thread, it’s just that high popularity for schlock like the Twilight series depresses me. I think of vampires the old way…. filthy, cold and evil. If you see one kill it, don’t negotiate with it.

  • Grumpy

    “No movie is worth half a billion dollars.”

    Hear, hear. And, to bring it back to the original post, every time a movie with a budget under $100 million does well at the B.O., I dearly hope that someone understands that frugality is profitable.

    As for Cameron’s politics:
    http://www.newsmeat.com/celebrity_political_donations/James_Cameron.php
    He donates to the CA Republican party, but he supports Democrats. He’s buddies with Schwarzenegger, and he teased Sigourney Weaver about her liberal politics. But he’s Canadian.

  • Petoht

    I didn’t think that most of the book dealt with said gory birth; more that it was a single scene in the book, just rather graphically described. There’s plenty of other squicky stuff in there, though.

    Then again, considering the general fan reaction to Breaking Dawn, they could probably change huge swaths of the story with little to no repercussions.

  • Joe Robin

    Roadhouse was worth half a billion dollars.

    The fact that it was made for ten is beside the point.

  • “Roadhouse was worth half a billion dollars. The fact that it was made for ten is beside the point.”

    I heard that when Swayze saw the budget, he said, “I thought it would be bigger.”

    Do you see what I did there? I’m so funny.