The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 blew the doors off the weekend box office with an estimated $139.5 million, just shy of Twilight Saga New Moon’s series record $142.7 million. B reaking Dawn managed the fifth best opening of all time (in dollars, not attendance), trailing just the Harry Potter finale, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 3, and New Moon, though it was not all good news at the box office. In spite of an extensive TV ad campaign, the dancing penguin picture, Happy Feet 2 debuted with an estimated $22 million, a little better than half as much as the original earned in 2006.  But buoyed by Breaking Dawn’s potent debut, the overall box office was up 14% from the same weekend last year.
 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): November 18 - 20, 2011

 

Film

Weekend Gross

Screens

Avg./

Screen

Total Gross

Wk#

1

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

$139,500,000

4,061

$34,351

$139,500,000

1

2

Happy Feet Two

$22,025,000

3,606

$6,108

$22,025,000

1

3

Immortals

$12,252,000

3,120

$3,927

$52,980,000

2

4

Jack and Jill

$12,000,000

3,438

$3,490

$41,028,000

2

5

Puss in Boots

$10,725,000

3,415

$3,141

$122,313,000

4

6

Tower Heist

$7,000,000

2,942

$2,379

$53,434,000

3

7

J. Edgar

$5,900,000

1,947

$3,030

$20,695,000

2

8

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

$2,900,000

1,808

$1,604

$28,333,000

3

9

In Time

$1,675,000

1,367

$1,225

$33,419,000

4

10

The Descendants

$1,222,000

29

$42,138

$1,300,000

1

 
As has become standard for the Twilight movies, Breaking Dawn’s mammoth total was heavily front-loaded with 51.6% of its weekend gross coming from Friday showings (which included a Gargantuan $30.25 million from midnight shows) as the “Twi-Hards” flocked to see the latest installment of the series on its very first day of release.  Not surprisingly the audience for the vampire romance was 80% female, with 60% over the age of 21.  Distaff viewers gave the film a solid “A-“ CinemaScore, while the fifth of the audience that was male graded the film lower, bringing its overall grade down to “B+.”
 
The audience for Happy Feet 2, which was 57% female and 53% under 25, gave the film a “B+” CinemaScore, so there is some hope for a recovery in coming weeks, though the penguin epic will face increased competition for the family audience with the upcoming release of Disney’s Muppet Movie and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.
 
Last weeks winner, the green-screen sword-and-sandals epic Immortals dropped 62%, which is somewhat better than Conan’s 68% sophomore collapse in August, but still disappointing.  Adam Sandler’s comedy Jack and Jill fell 52% (a big drop for a comedy in its second weekend), and likely means that the dual-role extravaganza will end up as one of the comedian’s less successful efforts.
 
Puss in Boots suffered its first major drop, falling 57% as it added an estimated $10 million to bring its domestic total to $122.3 million.  With increasing competition for the family film audience, this Dreamworks animated feature will be lucky to make the $150 million mark domestically.
 
Stop by next week to see how Disney’s attempt to revive the Muppets franchise, Martin Scorsese’s first 3-D movie, and the British/American computer animated Arthur Christmas (produced by Aardman Animations & Sony Pictures Animation) all fared as the competition for the family film audience gets fierce during the Thanksgiving Day weekend.