Eclipse opens with $30 Million +

via Mandy's Mind 

IMAX is even moreincentive to see this movie more (Regular and IMAX).

Personally I saw Twilight twice in theatre (Three times after last night) and New Moon three times in theatre (four after last night) and plan to see Eclipse four times (twice so far) in theatres.

That idea of seeing the newest film at least one more time than you saw the last is what will help box office sales increase with each movie. That and new fans discovering the series constantly....

Here are some numbers so far...
According to BoxOffice Mojo:

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse ripped into the record books with its midnight launch, grossing over $30 million at more than 4,000 theaters. That surpassed The Twilight Saga: New Moon‘s previous benchmark of $26.3 million. Included in Eclipse‘s sum was a new IMAX midnight milestone of over $1 million at 192 venues, topping Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen‘s $959,000.

The vampre(sic) romance sequel had already cast the widest opening net ever, biting into a whopping 4,416 locations (more theaters are expected to be added on Friday). Iron Man 2 previously held that title with 4,380 locations, while Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince holds the record for highest location count ever at 4,455. Eclipse‘s count includes 193 IMAX venues, which is just shy of Shrek Forever After‘s 194 record.

See more on Box Office Mojo

Twilight Lexicon posts:

The thing to keep in mind is that this figure only counts sales in the USA made through 3:00am this morning. It does not count the sales that are picked up during the day today through 11:59pm this evening. Once those figures come in tomorrow afternoon to reflect the first day’s complete total that number should be $150,000,000. This will solidly put Eclipse opening in the top ten movies of the year.

The big question is going to be if Eclipse can get to the 300,000,000 million mark. New Moon was just shy at circa 296,000,000. No matter what it is going to continues to smash records for what is a predominately female driven enterprise.

Further more @Larry411 writes:

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has opened to a record $30M+ overnight from approximately 4,000 screenings, beating the record $26.27M set by New Moon. This is an estimated total from all midnight and 3:00 AM shows. The film also set a new IMAX overnight record, with $1M at 192 locations beating the recordholder Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with $959K.

As I posted below, Twilight opened on November 21, 2008 at 3,419 theaters, taking in around $7M in midnight screenings (which was considered stratospheric at the time). Its first weekend total was $69.64M. The Twilight Saga: New Moon opened on November 20, 2009 with $26.27M from 3,514 midnight screenings at 4,024 locations on its way to a first day total of $72.7M (more than Twilight's entire opening weekend). Its first weekend total was $142.8M, making it the #3 all-time and #1 non-summer opening weekend of all time.

The Dark Knight had a $18.4M midnight debut (3-day weekend) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince took in $22.2M on a Tuesday night on its way to a 5-day weekend total of $158M. The Dark Knight went on to take in $67.17M that opening day, dropped 29.1% from Friday to Saturday to bring in another $47.65M, and ended with $43.6M on Sunday for an opening weekend total of $158.4M.

What to watch for: We won't be able to measure per theater averages until we know exactly how many showings there were. That will be a better indicator of how well Eclipse did vs. New Moon. The film's opening day total will be released tomorrow afternoon, Thursday 7/1. More theaters are expected to be added on Friday. The Independence Day holiday weekend is tabulated starting Friday, so the 3-day weekend totals will not include today and tomorrow's numbers. Therefore, it's possible that Eclipse may not set a holiday weekend record. Wednesday and Thursday's numbers will still count toward the film's total box office although they will be included in the week of Friday 6/25 - Thursday 7/1.