There was a LOT of trash talking over Twilight, and I tend to notice that when there is a lot of people complaining about something they know little about, it usually means that it is successful. I am not a Twilight fan and was never drawn to pick up the books. But I couldn’t avoid recognizing its popularity. I saw that book cover more than newspapers when out around town, and even if you feel it is not deserving of the praise it is getting, it cannot be avoided. Twilight is a hit.
Audiences found the vampire romance “Twilight” infectious in its opening weekend, pushing the movie to a take of $70.6 million.
Catherine Hardwicke’s film also enjoyed the biggest opening ever for a female director, blowing away the previous standard of $41.1 million set by Mimi Leder’s “Deep Impact” in 1998.
Drawing from its huge fan base of teenage girls, who fell for Stephenie Meyer’s novel of forbidden love between brooding vampire Edward Cullen and bookish high schooler Bella Swan, “Twilight” made a whopping $20,636 per theater, according to Sunday morning estimates.
See, unlike truly undeserving boxoffice success like Jackass or PottySpoof movies, this franchise has hit on an appealing concept to a very large demographic of readers. It may not be your cup of tea, but at least it had SOMETHING to offer other than recycled potty jokes and crotch kicks. I have to give it at most that much credit.
Well while all you people are busy trying to cut up Twilight and pretending that it doesn’t matter, allow me to point out that this weekend Twilight beat out a family friendly film on its opening weekend – an addage here at TMB that rarely goes challenged: never underestimate the Family Friendly Film. Twilight nearly triples the release of Bolt with $70.6million while Quantum of Solace lands a comfy second place (on its second week) at $27.4million while Disney’s animated feature Bolt was sniffing Bond’s heels at $27million.
I would have guessed that Bolt would have fared better than Bond’s second week, but I didn’t doubt for a second that Twilight was going to eat up all the attention at the boxoffice. So while all the naysayers are having their fun trying to come up with creative insults for Twilight, it would appear you are in a minority. There seems to be an awful lot of people (polls show teenage girls mostly) who are willing to go check this out.
Credit where credit is due. Twilight owns the boxoffice.
