Weekend Box Office: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 Wraps Up Series With Big Win

By Chris Kavan - 11/18/12 at 10:08 PM CT

It was a good weekend for those who like vampire and historic biopics as the two new debuts, plus some strong holdovers, helped the top 12 films take in $237 million - the sixth-highest weekend total on record.

Leading the pack by a comfortable margin was the final Twilight film: Breaking Dawn - Part 2. Opening with $141.3 million - it was good enough to be the eighth-best opening for any film, and the fourth-best for 2012 (behind The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and The Hunger Games). It's eight place showing puts is just behind The Twilight Sage: New Moon, which will keep the franchise record with $142.8 million.

Even though it couldn't top claim best franchise opening, it did top The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part One ($138.1 million). Not only that, but it also has the best audience reaction of any film in the series - earning a spectacular "A" cinemascore - and an A+ from those 25 or under. That should mean the film will enjoy great word-of-mouth, and could ultimately wind up the best film in the series once final numbers are tallied as $300 million is not out of the question. It also help make the Twilight Sage the only franchise to have three films open at $130+ - for now.

Also making its nation-wide debut, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln opened with a better-than-expected $21 million after it's amazing limited debut last weekend. Not surprisingly the audience was 67% over 35 (a look at my local theater heartily confirms this - I think mine was more like 80%) and they awarded the film an "A" cinemascore as well. With that kind of word-of-mouth, along with plenty of awards talk, Lincoln should also enjoy a healthy run.

Last weekend's top film, Skyfall, took a 53% hit (compared to Quantum of Solace's 60% drop) and took in $41.5 million in second place. It has earned $161.3 million in just 10 days and by Wednesday should pass the $168.4 million of Quantum to become the highest-grossing film in the Bond franchise. A $250 million total should be around where the film ultimately winds up with a $900 million world-wide gross almost guaranteed.

Wreck-It Ralph dropped 45% to wind up in fourth place with $18.3 million, raising its total to $121.4 million in its third week. Although it will face direct competition from Rise of the Guardians this week, it should still wind up over $150 million by the time it runs out of extra lives.

Rounding out the top five, Flight fell 42%, taking in $8.6 million, winding up with $61.3 million total. The potential Oscar contender has nearly doubled its $31 million budget and should wind up somewhere around the $75 million range when it is done.

With Thanksgiving rapidly approaching, many movies are opening Wednesday to catch the crowd. This included the animated Rise of the Guardians, the Red Dawn remake, the drama Life of Pi and the expansion of the romantic comedy/drama The Silver Linings Playbook. We'll see what audiences choose to stuff themselves with the extra holiday helpings thrown in.


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