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

Tim Briody: I guess in addition to the teen audience then, the series is drawing out the cougar demographic that hasn't had much besides Sex and the City in recent years.

Jim Van Nest: Like it or not, the Twilight series has now reached the level where every film will be an "event". And Reagen's right...this is not just 10-18 year old girls. This is pretty much all women at this point and apparently their need is so strong they're dragging their guys to it as well. It really is astonishing.

Kim Hollis: Reagen and Tim, I've thought about the demographic question a lot over the last couple of days. I'm not kidding when I say that every woman I know was talking about going to see this film, whether it was with a teenage daughter or just with a group of friends. It was the review in Slate that made me realize what the appeal is for such a wide-range of females (and given that demographic data from ERC tells us the audience was 80% female, with a 50/50 split of teens and adults, I think this is where the discussion lies). The reviewer commented that she knows New Moon is not a good movie, but she loves it anyway, because it so perfectly captures the angst she remembers feeling as a teenager herself. I think this is the key. Even if we know better now, with 20 years of hindsight on our side, we know that as teenagers we were every bit as silly and dramatic as Ms. Bella. It's relatable.

Jason Lee: I'll admit that the Twilight franchise has become a dominating part of the zeitgeist over the past 12 months, but still, the mind boggles at the number of moviegoers (I'll go out on a limb here and say "women) that plunked down their cold, hard cash on this movie. To reach $140 mil is astounding and normally, I'd argue that you have to be somewhat of a four-quadrant movie to achieve that crazy total...but the marketing and trailers and pre-release movie stills were all clearly aimed at women. It's almost like a "Passion of the Christ" scenario -- who knew so many women could come out for a single movie in one weekend?

Max Braden: I predicted an opening less than $90 million, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt... As far as quality goes, that's always in the eye of the beholder, of course. I never understood what was so great about Titanic, but both movies clearly tap into that doomed/forbidden/angst-y romance that has made Tristan & Isolde and Romeo & Juliet essential reading for hundreds of years. As far as numbers go, in hindsight New Moon and Twilight aren't so different from The Dark Knight and Batman Begins. On the surface both series appear to be highly biased to polar opposite demographics that would suggest that huge box office would be unattainable. But then both sequels doubled the opening weekends of their predecessors and set records in the process. (I still have trouble believing as many men saw New Moon as the number of women who saw The Dark Knight.)

Continued:       1       2       3       4       5