Eclipse Tops US Independence Day Weekend

JULY 5, 2010 - Showing at a record 4,468 locations (but far from a record screen count), Twilight Saga: Eclipse drew less over the three-day weekend than it did on its first day: an estimated US$66 million. That ranked as the third highest-grossing Independence Day opening weekend ever, behind Spider-Man 2's US$88.2 million and Transformers' US$70.5 million.

The top weekends for this holiday tend to be muted mostly due to the movies burning off some demand with weekday debuts, and Eclipse was no different, giving it the appearance of paling in comparison to The Twilight Saga: New Moon's US$142.8 million first weekend and even the first Twilight's US$69.6 million.

Summit's weekend exit polling indicated that 65 percent of the Eclipse audience was female, and 55 percent was 21 years of age and older. That's more male and older than that for New Moon, which was 80 percent female and 50 percent under 21, but New Moon's first weekend included its opening day, when the series' young female devotees were in maximum force.

The Last Airbender harnessed an estimated US$40.5 million at 3,169 locations over the three-day weekend. With Monday, its four-day weekend was an estimated $53.2 milion, bringing its five-day start to $70.5 million. That stood as writer-director M. Night Shyamlan's third highest-grossing opening behind Signs and The Village. The adaptation of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender apparently had a significant built-in fan base, because the picture's marketing did little to capture the uninitiated, besides showing off the movie's fantastical action and special effects.

Here is the Top 6 North American B-O estimates for July 2 - 4, 2010 weekend, in terms of rank, Movie name (studio), Weekend takings in USD, (Cumulative gross, USD) and week on chart, courtesy of Boxofficemojo.


1. Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Summit) $69,000,000 ($161 million) 1

2. The Last Airbender (Paramount) $40,525,000 ($56.8 mil) 1

3. Toy Story 3 (Buena Vista) $30.1 million ($289.0 million) 3

4. Grown Ups (Sony/Columbia) $19.1 million ($77.6 mil) 2

5. Knight & Day (Fox) $10. million ($45.7 million) 2

6. The Karate Kid (Sony/Columbia) $8.1 million ($151.6 million) 3