Box Office - 'New Moon' Narrowly Beats 'Blind Side'

Just about any other weekend, $66 million might seem like a powerful number, but pull back a bit and you'll start to see a different kind of writing on the wall. The Twilight Saga: New Moon did win the weekend - but not by much - and that $66 million figure, a steep 64% drop from its debut stanza, is actually the five-day total. Over three days, the sequel only made $42.5 million, which reflects a 70% fall and, symmetrically, a $100 million decline from its opening weekend. The movie has still earned $230 million in ten days, and that's plenty. But the freebies of a five-day holiday weekend are behind us, and this movie is in a real battle right now with The Blind Side, which nobody saw coming. That probably indicates a rougher road ahead for New Moon than the pic's $142 million start would indicate. Certainly, it looks close to impossible for this to push for a whole lot more than $300 million. Speaking of The Blind Side, it trounced expectations for the five-day session, trailing New Moon by only $9 million. That means outside of Wednesday, when New Moon made $14 million and change, The Blind Side played the teenage vampires about even...in 1,000 fewer theaters. That's terribly impressive. More importantly, the second weekend, five days or not, was much, much stronger than its debut, and as a result, the film has already crossed the $100 million mark. 2012 held on to third place, with a pretty good $25.6 million over the five days, and this is what I'd like to point out about the slipping audience for New Moon despite the huge opening. The disaster movie picked up $18 million on the more traditional Friday - Sunday weekend, and that's going to be about where New Moon is next weekend, its third in theaters. That points to New Moon being strong among the audience it inherited but it's not generating many converts. Big start, but it could be a slow finish. The Top Five (five-day totals):
1 - New Moon ($66.5 million)
2 - Blind Side ($57.5 million)
3 - 2012 ($25.6 million)
4 - Old Dogs ($24.1 million)
5 - Ninja Assassin ($21 million)

Comments

[D]

That probably indicates a rougher road ahead for New Moon than the pic's $142 million start would indicate.
Was anyone actually surprised by New Moon's collapse? It seemed pretty obvious (at least to me) that the movie did not appeal to as broad an audience as Transformers 2 and was not good enough to win over non-fangirls like the Dark Knight did (though in that case it was fanboys).

[Get The Big Picture]

I was surprised by the degree of the collapse. I thought the holiday would help it hold better this weekend.

[D]

I guess I can see your point Colin. I do want to congratulate Blind Side. Never in a million years did I think it would make $100 million in two weeks, five day weekend or not. I wonder if this makes it more likely that Moneyball can be put back in production.

[Nelson]

even with this drop, new moon is far from failure. it was made on a relatively low budget and is currently looking at becoming the 5th highest grossing movie of the year.

but congrats to The Blind Side

[Moncherion]

It looks amazing!