The Twilight Saga: Eclipse overshadowed its competition during the Fourth of July holiday weekend, fending off a surprising opening by Paramount’s The Last Airbender.
The third installment of Summit Entertainment’s popular vampire series was strong out of the gates mid-week, shattering midnight records with $30 million in the wee hours alone. This contributed to a $68.5 million opening day, the highest Wednesday ever and second only to it’s own predecessor, New Moon, in single day grosses.
However, like the previous sequel, excitement for Robert Pattinson’s patented stare was front-loaded. From Friday through Sunday, Eclipse added another $69 million, essentially doubling its day one and modest $68M budget.
With the 4th falling on a Sunday, a significant portion of the country enjoyed a Monday of rest and recovery, which seems to be reflected in early estimates. Those sparkling vampires added another $13.5M on Monday to bring its domestic total already to $175.3 million and $275.5M worldwide, even before opening in international markets like the UK, France, and Germany where the second was strong.
The Stephenie Meyer adaptations have been critic-proof, but just over half of professional reviews rated the film favorably (52% on RottenTomatoes), and outsiders seemed shocked at my passing grade for the threequel. (What? It wasn’t bad.)
The Last AirbenderOn the other hand, critics were unkind to M. Night Shyamalan’s latest, branding it with an 8% positive score, and our own David Pinson landed a few blows of his own on Airbender. But even amongst all the vitriol, audiences were duped into seeing Shyamalan fail them once again.
Paramount’s counter-programming, the even younger-skewing Nickelodeon TV series port, bowed on Thursday to $16.4M and managed another $53.2M over the 4-day weekend for a quick $70.5M. (Though its reported cost was $280 million once you factor in the $150 million production budget and the $130 million spent pushing the product.)
It’s early success can be attributed to a built-in fanbase for the series, the lack of selection over a typically busy movie weekend, and a saavy marketing campaign that focused on the CGI while downplaying Shyamalan’s involvement. But it mostly boils down to kids movies becoming a sure bet for studios as shoddy 3D dominates the marketplace and jacks up ticket prices.
Regardless, older fans are finally waking up to the realization that Shyamalan isn’t just slumping after a strong start; he’s slowly descending into hackdom one over-written, poorly-acted film at a time. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. What happens now that people have been fooled by him four or five times in a row?
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