YOU CAN'T STOP THE SPARKLE

[cleolinda]

'New Moon' Smashes 'Dark Knight's' Opening Day Record!

Which means it's already made a shade just under one hundred million ($100M), which was my original entire-weekend prediction. (ETA: Or wait, the midnight screenings are included? $72M is a bit better. Although that's still more in 24 hours than Twilight made its entire first weekend.) I'm officially revising my estimates up to $170M now. (Well, in that case, let's take it down to $140M.)

You know, I'm not surprised, exactly. It was tracking above TDK all week, and it's already the highest-grossing advance ticket seller and midnight opening. And it may be that the mainstream won't turn out the rest of the weekend. But the official @Twilight account on Twitter has been RTing messages from fans saying that, as of mid-afternoon yesterday, they had already seen the movie four and five times. Four and five times. I understand, sociologically, psychologically, emotionally, financially, why it's happening. I'm not surprised, precisely. But I'm kind of astounded.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Comments

[sarcasticcheese.livejournal.com]

I believe that $73 million includes the midnight showings, I think it usually does. It's going to depend on what the numbers are today as to whether it smashes TDK.

I knew it would be big. I didn't think it would be THIS big.

[glenvorian.livejournal.com]

Stephanie is laughing all the way to the bank.

[dives.livejournal.com]

You know, I honestly wonder about this. Like, what if I had written a book, and I became known for that book and that book only, for better or worse? And, you know, it wasn't great but it was the best I could do at the time, but for some reason people became obsessed with the story? And I made absolutely obscene amounts of money from it...but nobody had any interest in my other, improved books (http://www.amazon.com/Host-Novel-Stephenie-Meyer/dp/0316068047)? Just endless iterations of the first one?

As a person I guess I would be okay with it. I mean, I want to provide for my family and so on. But as a writer...I don't think I would want that, at least not to the extent Meyer is experiencing it. I guess I would want someone to like a book I wrote because it says something interesting and significant, because it helps people to see the world in a different way, not because it happens to tap into a personal fantasy of theirs.

I suppose that's very pretentious.

[idrach.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying this to be nasty, but I honestly thought the Host was just a rehash of Twilight. It had a lot of the same themes and needed editing, just like Twilight. I know a lot of people think it's better, and stylistically it might be a little better, but it was too similar to Twilight for me to take seriously. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is... Meyer has yet to show that she can do stories other than Twilight. I think we should wait and see what else she has to write, like the ghost story she mentioned or the cannibalistic mermaids. But to be fair the Host has done extremely, extremely well- it hit #1 on the NYT bestseller list and is going to be adapted into a movie by the man who made Gattaca. So she may yet become known for something other than vampires.

And I don't think that's pretentious at all!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

No, they actually say that that's on top of the midnight showings.

[sarcasticcheese.livejournal.com]

From EW.com

"(The figure includes the $26.3 million New Moon banked from midnight screenings, also a box office record.)"

EW article (http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/11/21/new-moon-tears-into-box-office-record-with-72-7-million-opening-day/)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay--what I first saw said it was included.

[sarcasticcheese.livejournal.com]

The first couple ones I saw made it seem like it was included too. Then I was like "JFC, that's a lot of freakin' money in one day!"

Not that $73 million in one day is anything to sneeze at. :)