New Moon Sets New Record for Midnight Screenings

November 20, 2009

Everyone in the industry was expecting the opening of The Twilight Saga: New Moon to be big, but few would have predicted that it would top the performances of The Dark Knight and Harry Potter to record the biggest midnight opening in movie history. But that's exactly what it did, as it earned a massive $26.27 million in 3,514 theaters to beat the previous record of $22.2 million, held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Fans are already counting the number of times they've seen the movie on message boards around the web, and clearly a phenomenal weekend is in prospect. While The Dark Knight's $158 million all-time weekend mark seems unlikely to fall (not least because New Moon is playing in 300 fewer theaters), a place in the all-time top 10 looks increasingly likely. Even more remarkably, the midnight shows alone put the movie in the top 100 single days of all time, and a top 10 showing there is inevitable.

- All-time biggest weekends at the box office
- All-time biggest single days at the box office

Filed under: The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Twilight Saga: New Moon