November 24, 2009

How Do 'New Moon' Box-Office Numbers Stand Up To Other Blockbusters?

By Eric Ditzian (MTV.com)

The astonishing figure of $140.7 million - the total opening-weekend haul of New Moon - has been splashed all over the Web since Sunday. The number is hard to wrap your head around, so in an effort to give it some historical context and to see what the future holds, MTV News compared the Twilight sequel to other movies that have gone gangbusters at the box office. With help of BoxOfficeMojo.com, here's what we found out:

New Moon vs. Twilight

When it hit theaters around the same time last year, Twilight did some impressive box-office biz: $69.6 million. New Moon more than doubled that total. The first film went on to gross $192.8 million domestically. If the pattern holds, New Moon could gross over $380 million domestically. But keep in mind that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - 2009's B.O. champ thus far - opened with $108 million and went on to gross over $400 million. In that context, New Moon could push well past the $400 million mark. Could it go even further?

The Opening Weekend

Sure, $140.7 is a huge number, but it's not the biggest of all time. The Dark Knight took in $158 million, and Spider-Man 3 garnered $151 million. Dark Knight finished off with $533 million (#2 of all time) and Spider-Man ended up with $337 million (#17 ever). That's a pretty wide gap. Will people return over and over to New Moon in the way they did for Dark Knight, but not for Spider-Man? If you know anything about how die-hard Twilighters are, the answer to that question is clear.

The All-Time List

The champ is Titanic, with over $600 million domestically. Where it gets interesting is when you look inside that number: James Cameron's epic took in only $28 million during its opening weekend, good for the #1 spot but hardly a staggering sum. The next weekend, it jumped to $35 million, and for the next 10 weeks it never dropped below the $20 million mark. It stayed #1 for 17 weeks in a row. That is insane staying power. Positive word of mouth and repeat viewership drove the film. Can New Moon pull off something similar? We'll have to wait until ...

The Second Weekend

In its second week of release, Twilight dropped 62 percent over the Thanksgiving weekend for a total of $23 million. Both the Vince Vaughn comedy Four Christmases and the animated film Bolt beat out the vampires. This Wednesday, Ninja Assassin and John Travolta's Old Dogs open, while Fantastic Mr. Fox goes wide. Will Twilighters keep hitting the theater over the long holiday weekend, or will other films take a chunk out of the New Moon business? The second weekend will be the key to understanding if the movie has a shot at becoming one of the biggest movies of all time.