No, I would be going on and on about how great it will be to probably not see another one of these ridiculous movies made. To each his own if you think that TDK was that bad.

I just saw a preview for this...this looks like a fucking joke. Vampires running around in daylight? Flying at warp speed?

This thing is going nuts. My niece has advised that the ticket scalpers at her school are now getting $150.00 a ticket for opening night.

As I have said before, whilst I wish this sort of rubbish would fail, this is going to be BIG. Whilst beating The Dark Knight is unlikely, those sort of figures cannot be ruled out.

The question is: How big is the female teen audience that is likely to make up the bulk of ticket admissions? It is not the same female audience as the Mamma Mia / Sex and the City group, but equally it is a slightly different demographic than the High School Musical 3 grouping.

If this does become a kind of Harry Potter for girls, but with very heavy repeat business (some of my niece's friends want to see it three times at least on opening weekend if they can) I can forsee at least a $300,000,000.00 domestic haul.

Further, IF it proves to be actually good, then the international take will be significant also. I really believe this is the one that might, just might (and I know it is a long shot) take out the Titanic record.

And may the Lord help cinema if it does.

omg....Wait....Are any of you female DVDtalk posters out there? What is the fucking appeal to those that like this? Why do you want to see this if you do want to see this at all?

My wife read the set already...twice...in a row. This movie is going to bank. Period.

just checked, this is playing on only 3200 screens. And Bolt comes out next week too. If this thing does over 40 mil opening weekend , i would be amazed. Also i don't think this will be on 4 or 5 screens per theater either.

I haven't kept up with the film industry in the past couple years, so I'm in no real place to say how much the film will make its opening weekend. But Bolt and Twilight are made for two different audiences, really. Twilight may be a tween thing, but it's also an older teen thing, too.

Wait a second, this movie has ticket scalpers?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!? I might have to try this as a get rich quick scheme.

Correction - it is opening in 3200 theaters. It will be on far more screens than that, probably between 6,000 and 7,000. I know that there will be numerous concurrent midnight showing on opening day at my local theater, for example.

By way of further example, when The Dark Knight opened, it opened in 4366 theaters. But according to BOM, it was actually playing on an estimated 9,300 screens.

Anyone that actually thinks this movie will break Titanic's record is a damned fool. I don't care how popular the book series is, it doesn't stand a chance at breaking that record (and this coming from someone that saw Titanic in theaters and disliked it very much).

01.) Titanic (1997) -- $600,779,824
02.) The Dark Knight (2008) -- $528,535,317
03.) Star Wars (1977) -- $460,935,665
04.) Shrek 2 (2004) -- $436,471,036
05.) E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) -- $434,949,459
06.) Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) -- $431,065,444
07.) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) -- $423,032,628
08.) Spider-Man (2002) -- $403,706,375
09.) Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) -- $380,262,555
10.) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) -- $377,019,252

Are you people serious? Do you all truly believe this movie is going to make that much? If The Dark Knight couldn't usurp Titanic, there is no way this piece of trash will. However large a following this has, I guarantee you Batman has a larger and more dedicated fanbase. Get real people.

Okay, as a female, I’ll take this one. Keep in mind, I’m a 34 year old mom, not a 16 year old girl. But I do remember when I was a teenage girl. The appeal for most girls is that the heroine is like they are. She is shy, likes to read books, not the prom queen or the cheerleader, pretty but not beautiful. She moves to this new town and starts at a new school. There she meets a gorgeous guy who saves her life (numerous times). And he is a vampire – giving him that bad boy quality every good girl secretly wants.

The appeal is that a lot of girls and women identify with her and this is their fantasy. That is the appeal of the books at least. As for the movie, how it does at the box office will all depend on how well it is translated to the screen. If they can capture the fantasy of these girls/women, I can see the girls, at least, going back many times to see it.

I understand why most guys don’t understand it. But there are many guy movies I just don’t get the appeal of either (Superbad being a recent example – seen it twice, still don’t see the humor). When you aren’t the target audience of film, sometimes, you just don’t understand why anyone would like it.

For my generation, a similar example was Dirty Dancing. I was in 8th grade when it came out and my friends and I saw it 8 times. We went every weekend for two months. Again, a movie with a shy, quiet heroine who falls for the bad boy.

Also, my 60 year old mother loves the books and is dragging my dad to see it first show on Friday. I think the movie has the potential to be a huge hit. We all know the power of teenage girls at the box office but it will depend on how good the movie is.

or..how good the trailer is in most cases, I'd assume.

But the problem I have with this sentiment (and you nailed it on the head, BTW) is that Edward doesn't love Bella because of her personality, her wit, or her charm, but essentially because she is magic. When I first heard about the books, I was actually for them because, as you pointed out with Superbad (and Knocked Up, Zack & Miri, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, etc.) schlbs are always landing impossibly beautiful women, and we could use a few stories with the roles reversed. But for it to just be some nonsense about the potency of her blood is just stupid. Also, it's not really talking about the importance of spirit over looks when Meyer never shuts up about how gorgeous Edward is.

Regardless of its fan base, I don't think this is going to do big business after the first two weeks. Now, those first two weeks are gonna be crazy, but this movie just looks bad. Just like the Eragon movie pointed out just how shitty those books were, I think at least a good chunk of viewers will finally realize what a skin-deep piece of tripe these books are.

We did a story at work with a group of girls who were looking forward to the movie. They were all planning on seeing it at least three times this weekend.

I think the box office is going to do just fine.

Well said.

Most of the 14-year old girls that I teach are not the spunky, one-vote-shy-of-being-Prom-Queen, Bring It On-types, but rather thoughtful dreamers who aren't yet comfortable withing being in their own skin. Look at the appeal of Harry Potter. I'd guess that about 80% of my girls have read the books and seen the movies, partly because they can relate to H.P., and partly because they finally have a strong heroine in Hermione to emulate. With Twilight they have relateable female lead.

While Twilight won't have the cross-gender appeal of H.P. (not a single one of my male students has expressed an interest in it, and I've never seen one read the book), it will draw a huge female audience. Assuming it's decently made, this one's going to be quite big. (And when I say big, I mean Sex and the City-big, perhaps $150 million, tops, which is roughly half of what the Harry Potter films bring in domestic.)

Judging from the response of all the young females in the theater while the trailer played in front of Role Models, I think it will make a decent amount during it's run. These girls were shrieking with excitement.

The demographic of this movie is very similar to that which made Titanic the box office champ. Not sure why people get so bent out of shape at the prospect of this movie making a lot of bank. God forbid it surpass Dark Knight (as if it somehow lessens that movie in any way). I didn't go running for the hills when Star Wars (my favorite movie BTW) lost it's top spot.

Movie looks silly to me, but hey, I'm not the intended audience.

Huh? Edward becomes fascinated with Bella because of her scent, but the reason he falls in love with her is her intellect/personality. Read the excerpts of Midnight Sun that are online, it's pretty interesting to read Edward's perspective on the whole story.

Twilight won't even make Harry Potter numbers. Twilight has almost ZERO appeal to teenage and adult males. Titanic, at least, had spectacular special effects and Terminator's James Cameron. TDK drew a female audience because of Ledger, a great story, a familiar property, and major cross-gender buzz.

Males and females love HP. Females love Twilight. Do the math.

(And for what it's worth, I'm hoping Twilight does do big business. There's a serious dearth of relateable, strong, mature, and interesting female protagonists in young adult literature and film.)

That's still arbitrary magic. He loves her because she is mystically different from everyone else in the world, and the personality bit comes later.

stole this from imdb
Nikki Finke observed Sunday that industry experts don't "quite know what to make of this frenzy in terms of estimating box office grosses for this low-cost blockbuster's November 21 opening ... with estimates ranging from $35 million and maybe $40 million all the way up to $60 million.

if this thing makes 60, i would be amazed. And it'll drop like a rock come next week since all the fan girls are gonna see it this weekend.

My gut tells me around a $42m opening and an $87m total.

It would be bigger if they knew how to market it (and it didn't look like a dog turd).

They did an OK job marketing Step Up.

From DeadlineHollywoodDaily:
Summit Entertainment has arranged with the major theater circuits for Thursday midnight or Friday morning shows. As of noon ET today, Twilight has already sold out 389 performances at MovieTickets.com, including more than 140 this past weekend alone. Four days prior to its release, Twilight is already No. 20 on MovieTickets' Top-20 Pre-Sale List of All-Time. The pic has accounted for 85% of tickets sold on the site today. Meanwhile, Warner Bros is using Twilight to debut its new Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince trailer which aired first on the net this weekend. You may recall that Potter vacated the November 21st release date which Twilight grabbed.

One way or another, this thread is going to be very entertaining when Friday's estimates are published.