New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Michael Lynderey: New Moon, like Twilight, may well turn out to be the highest grossing movie of the season. I think an opening of just about $100 million is where the target here is - but just to be Scrooge-like, I'll say $99 million. After that, and just like the first one, it'll drop big, before rebounding a little over the holiday season ($215 million total?). And how odd it is to be writing that number - if you showed me the first movie and told me it was released in 1988 and grossed something like $15 million, it would make perfect sense. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, this series went from a little PG-13 vampire romance to a box office juggernaut, and it's been a transition so seamless that I only remembered now how unexceptional the first movie looked just a year ago today.

Kim Hollis: I think it's going to be around $110 million for the opening. I'm trying to talk myself down from that number, but I work with women. I know how they feel about the movie. I know how their daughters feel about the movie. I'm helping people find Edward cutouts to buy for kids. And you might think it would suffer huge dropoff, but Twilight wasn't ultimately victim to such a fate and I think this one could wind up being a bigger juggernaut than anyone expects it to be.

Tom Macy: Blurg. Do I have to? The first Twilight was my official rude awakening that I had completely lost touch with what was popular. You'd think High School Musical would've done the job, but no. Anticipation for this puppy is through the roof. I expect some serious frontloading. So with the original opening to around $70 million I think we're looking at $85-$90 million with a hefty chunk of that coming from midnight screenings.

David Mumpower: I've been saying for a while now that I thought this one could take a page out of the Pirates of the Caribbean playbook with the second film spiking huge over the previous title's opening weekend. You don't want to know how large a number my gut instinct says New Moon will make. The problem I have with my crazy-high number (and we're talking well beyond Iron Man numbers here) is that I have trouble getting the requisite teen males attending the film to make it possible. I'm just not certain there are enough disaffected teen girls to compensate for that. So, I am stuck between the rational part of my brain screaming that the demographics aren't solid enough for a top five all-time opening and my gut saying, "Taylor Lautner + Robert Pattinson = cha-freakin-ching." My floor on this film -- I swear to God -- is $90 million. That's the least amount of money I expect it to make in its first three days. The brand has been grown significantly since the already hugely successful Twilight.

Les Winan: We're all going to die!!! AAAHHHH!

Tim Briody: It took five topics, but Les finally has the correct answer.

Continued:       1       2       3       4       5