'Twilight' Movie Tickets Sales Over $283.5 Million

"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1" earned $283.5 million world-wide in its opening weekend, proving the vampire-romance series hasn't lost any of its bite with audiences.


The latest installment of the fantasy movie took in $139.5 million domestically and grossed $144 million abroad from 54 territories. The movie, which cost $110 million to make, was released by Summit Entertainment LLC.

At the Los Angeles premiere of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part I," Twi-hards screamed as stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner walked the black carpet. Michelle Kung was there and has details on Lunch Break.

As for domestic openings this year, "Breaking Dawn Part 1" trails only the $169.2 million opening of "Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows Part 2" in July. Unlike the Harry Potter film, "Breaking Dawn Part 1" was released strictly in 2-D and didn't receive any bump from higher-priced 3-D tickets.

The total for "Breaking Dawn Part 1" includes $30.3 million from midnight screenings on Thursday night.

Directed by Bill Condon, "Breaking Dawn Part 1," the fourth movie in a planned series of five, stars Kristen Stewart as a human teenager who marries and become pregnant by a vampire (Robert Pattinson).

The opening was in line with Summit's expectations, said Richie Fay, the studio's president of domestic distribution. Summit was initially concerned that the year-and-a-half gap since the previous "Twilight" installment, "Eclipse," might erode attendance, but fans turned out in record numbers.

As expected, women made up the majority of the audience for "Breaking Dawn Part 1," with females making up 80% of ticket-buyers.

The opening bodes well for "Breaking Dawn Part 2," the final title in the franchise, which is to be released next November.

The weekend's other big release, the animated penguin feature "Happy Feet Two," had to settle for $22 million from 3,606 theaters. The audience was primarily female, with women making up 57% of the audience. Released by Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Pictures, the $135 million film is a follow-up to 2006's original, which grossed $41.5 million its opening weekend and $198 million domestically.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in the latest 'Twilight' series film.

According to Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. Pictures' president of distribution, the movie's opening was slightly below studio expectations, due to a weekend that was more competitive than expected.

The family film made 50% of its gross from 3-D screenings.

In limited release, the Hawaiian dramedy "The Descendents," starring George Clooney as a cuckolded father of two girls, earned $1.2 million from 29 theaters. The film, which opened Wednesday, has grossed $1.3 million to date with a strong $42,150 per screen average. Distributor Fox Searchlight will expand the theater count to roughly 420 screens in 60 different markets next Wednesday. News Corp. owns both Fox and The Wall Street Journal.

"Immortals" earned $12.3 million over the weekend, dropping 62% from the previous week, when it had been No. 1 at the box office. The Relativity Media LLC 3-D epic has cumulatively earned $53 million to date.