US Box Office

Week ending: 22 November 2009

The Twilight Saga: New Moon had an out of this world debut, breaking numerous records on its way to its $140.7m debut. The second installment of Stephanie Meyer’s teen vampire series, New Moon took in $26.3m from midnight showings on Thursday to set a new high and its first day total of $72.7m was also another record. Its weekend total ranks as the third highest in history behind only The Dark Knight ($158.4m) and Spider-Man 3 ($151m). Overall, New Moon more than doubled the opening weekend total of last year’s Twilight ($69.6m) and looks to set to top the first film’s gross of $192.8m as early as next week.

Some way behind in second place was The Blind Side, which saw a personal best for its star Sandra Bullock. The opening of $34.5m topped her previous high of $33.6m with The Proposal and gave the football-themed real-life drama the distinction of having the best ever opening for a sports movie. Last week’s number one, 2012, dropped to third place following a 59% dip. Its $26.5m gave the apocalyptic action movie a 10-day total of $108.2m.

Planet 51 landed in fourth place following its $12.6m debut. The animated comedy about a world of aliens who receive a strange visitor features the voices of Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel and Gary Oldman. With a 45% drop off, A Christmas Carol is going down before the holiday decorations go up. Slipping from second place to fifth, the animated Dickens tale starring Jim Carrey added $12.2m to take its three-week total to $79.8m.

Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire expanded to 629 theatres and saw an increase of more than 87%. The drama about an overweight, illiterate Harlem teen was in sixth place with $11m, giving it a three-week total of $21.4m. Overall the top ten combined for a lofty $245.6m according to Nielsen EDI, which was up a massive 59% on the corresponding period last year when Twilight rose to the number one spot on its debut.

Next week’s Thanksgiving weekend sees the release of Old Dogs starring Robin Williams and John Travolta as best friends who find themselves looking after two young boys. Another release fighting for the holiday audience is Ninja Assassin, which is directed by James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) and produced by the Wachowski Brothers.

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