Airbender Forecast/Daily Numbers

By Kim Hollis and David Mumpower

July 1, 2010

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The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Box Office Analysis

As was reported yesterday, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse shattered its own record in becoming the most lucrative midnight exhibition of all time, garnering an astounding $30 million overnight. This makes sense in that we are discussing a movie that celebrates creatures of the night. It’s only fitting that oversexed women would want to be out as late as possible on the off-chance vampires are real. Come to think of it, this makes Twilight opening days Vampire Christmas. Or vampire hunting season. Or something like that. None of this speculation matters since vampires aren’t real and Twilight fans clearly aren’t getting laid anyway.

The point is that Eclipse failed to sustain its momentum over the first 20 hours of its release, slowing down from the scorching 12:01 a.m. pace to become only moderately popular Wednesday afternoon. This is how the news is being reported anyway as Eclipse earned “only” $38.5 million, a total representing the 31st largest single day of box office on its own and one of the best half dozen Wednesday openings on record. Combined with the previous night of box office, we’re talking about the second biggest single day of box office thus far, meaning The Twilight Saga claims the top two spots on this list.

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To our astonishment, some analysis of this is negative as if Twilight has faded in some way. Simply put, there is no logical support for such an argument. The previous iteration, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, opened on a Friday. There is a natural advantage for a weekend release over a mid-week one. While there may come a time when a massive single day of box office still represents a disappointment (probably on something with a Robin Hood-sized out of control production budget), this isn’t it. A film with a $65 million budget earned $68.5 million in 24 hours on a Wednesday. That’s the stuff of myth and legend. Let’s try to keep a bit of perspective here no matter how much you may hate or love all things Bella Swan.

What happens next is where the debate lies. Yes, there will be a significant decline on Thursday, and this is particularly true if people choose to post the misleading percentage drop based on overall Thursday box office. In reality, the $38.5 million Eclipse earned during the day is the jumping off point for expectations. As such, even a $20 million performance wouldn’t be shocking or even troubling. Anything more than that is solid to respectable. A lot more than that means we’re looking at a juggernaut. As fate would have it, John Hamann and Tim Briody are both off this weekend, meaning that we will be anchoring the BOP coverage of Eclipse all weekend. In case you’re wondering, Kim is Team Edward and David is Team Jacob.

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