I am not sure why Catherine Hardwicke went ahead and directed Twilight. I mean, a few men were probably in the running, she should have given up and become an assistant director to one of them… Just kidding, but seriously.
Oh, did I mention it is based on a novel by another female, Stephenie Meyer?
Congratulations to all concerned.
From deadlinehollywood:
Entertainment’s low cost blockbuster Twilight opened huge as expected because of heavy pre-sales with $35.7M Friday from 3,419 theaters, including $7M worth of Thursday midnight shows, for what should be $75M for its first North American weekend in release. Fangirls — or should I say fang-girls — were buying 5 Twilight tickets per second as of early Friday morning, making Twilight online ticket-seller Fandango’s fastest-selling film since The Dark Knight last July. Then the tween and teen females in store bought or homemade Twilight clothes (and even Twilight tattoos) flocked to the first Big Screen version of Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling series of Romeo & Juliet-style vampire romance books. Yet the movie adaptation was made by start-up studio Summit for only $37M.
This is the biggest opening for a female director. Catherine Hardwicke is easily beating Mimi Leder’s $41.1M for 1998′s Deep Impact. (But with an asterisk since these figures aren’t adjusted for inflation, ticket prices, etc.) Twilight will have the 2nd best opening day for a November release behind Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, and the 11th best Friday opening of all time, beating the first Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone, and the 15th best opening day ever. Summit is expecting at least another $24M for Saturday and another $15M for Sunday. It’s a defining moment for the start-up studio that had really struggled on its first few releases.
Incidentally, I have no plans on seeing it, but for those of you who have, please do share your thoughts…
Posted by PUMA Pundit
