'Twilight' sequel breaks opening day record: report

November 22, 2009

LOS ANGELES- All the hype surrounding the "Twilight" vampire romance sequel is scoring big at the box office, with industry reports estimating Saturday it took in the largest opening-day receipts on record.

Summit Entertainment's "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," which opened at 12:01 am on Friday raked in (dollar)72.7 million on its first day, outpacing Batman sequel "The Dark Knight" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," according to estimates by the Hollywood.com industry website.

"The Dark Knight" brought in (dollar)67.2 million on its first day in 2008, while "Transformers" snatched (dollar)62 million on its opening day earlier this year.

Female-targeted "New Moon" already took in (dollar)26.3 million for its midnight showing alone, beating best marks set by "The Dark Knight" -- (dollar)18.4 million on July 18, 2008 -- and the sixth Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince," which earned (dollar)22.2 million earlier this year.

Hollywood.com predicted the vampire flick was set to join only a dozen other films to have sold 100 million dollars worth of tickets in a single weekend.

If "New Moon's" stellar opening carries over to Saturday and Sunday, the film could rewrite the record books further, threatening the opening weekend record of "The Dark Knight," which took (dollar)158.3 million last year.

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