The Twilight Saga: Eclipse dominates US box office
Story by Jack Foley
AS WIDELY predicted, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse dominated the US box office over the weekend (July 2-4, 2010), pulling in an estimated $68.5 million.
Combined with its takings since its midnight release on Wednesday, the third film in the vampire saga has now earned around $161 million in the US alone.
It also broke a record for the widest release in film history, debuting on 4,416 screens in total, thereby surpassing the previous record set by Iron Man 2 earlier this summer (4,380).
The latest in the big screen adaptations of the popular Stephenie Meyer novels easily blew away the competition, although Paramount’s 3D release, The Last Airbender, directed by M Night Shyamalan, did better than anticipated off the back of some damning reviews, taking an estimated $41.6 million. This figure includes sales from the traditionally more lucrative 3D screens.
Disney-Pixar’s Toy Story 3 also continued to perform well, earning about $30.1 million.
Rounding out the top five over the traditionally lucrative Independence Day weekend were Adam Sandler ensemble comedy Grown Ups, which took fourth spot with an estimated $18.5 million, and Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz two-hander Knight and Day, which came in fifth with about $9.9 million.
Sony’s The Karate Kid remake also took about $8 million, while The A-Team pulled in a further $2.9 million.
View photos from The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
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