No Surprise Here – The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Opens At #1

July 04, 2010 | by The Infamous Billy The Kidd |

If you were expecting anything other than THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE to rank at the top of the box office this weekend, then you might be sorely disappointed. A sparkly Robert Pattinson and a shirtless Taylor Lautner reigned supreme as the 3rd installment of the TWILIGHT series pulled in $69 million for the 3-day weekend and $161 million since its Wednesday opening.

What might be a bit surprising is the failure for ECLIPSE to surpass the 1-day opening record set by NEW MOON, failing short of the $72.7 million by only registering $68.5 million on the 3oth. Interest seemed to wane in the film after the hardcore fans saw it right away, as the numbers from Friday-Saturday-Sunday were nearly identical to the damage ECLIPSE did on day #1.

Another surprise might be the amount of people that still came out and watched THE LAST AIRBENDER after everyone proclaimed how badly it sucked. $40.6 million made up the 3-day take of M. Night Shyamalan’s latest flick, with a grand total of $57 million counted since its opening on July 1. But it’s still far below what would be expected for a 4th of July blockbuster and comes nowhere near the $150 million budget, marking this as the latest flop of the summer and the biggest Shyalaman has endured to date.

TOY STORY 3 finally fell from the top slot into the bronze medal position, still pulling a strong tally with $30.1 million, pushing the Pixar/Disney sequel to $289 million, just $4 million behind the 2nd highest-grossing Pixar movie of all-time, UP. #1 remains FINDING NEMO at $340 million, a mark within range of TOY STORY 3 if it continues to perform well, so we may have a box office race worth watching this summer yet.

The Kidd called it correctly this week, nailing ECLIPSE’s box office within a million bucks and hitting THE LAST AIRBENDER within $8 million (don’t believe me…? See it for yourself HERE), so let’s see how well I can predict what’s coming up this week. The 2 biggest releases opening on the 9th are the animated Universal flick DESPICABLE ME and the relaunch of the Predator franchise with PREDATORS, starring Adrien Brody and Laurence Fishburne.

Expect a new #1, as DESPICABLE ME should pull in the lion’s share of the family audience, and, with the 3-D screens boosting its receipts, I wouldn’t be shocked to see DESPICABLE ME do something around $68 million. PREDATORS should finish comfortably in 2nd place, but, an R-rated action film with some franchise damage that hasn’t done well since the 80s original might face an uphill climb. I’m looking at about a $42 million opening, but, if it were to fall closer to the $25 million that THE A-TEAM saw in its first weekend, I’d consider that a bit underwhelming. However, with the way some of these films have been playing this summer, it’s not that far-fetched. GREASE SING-A-LONG (in very limited release) and a wider opening for CYRUS also hit the box office, but I doubt any of them do any significant business to matter much in the overall scheme of things.

Here’s the full top 10 from this weekend’s box office: