The question this weekend wasn’t whether Twilight: Breaking Dawn would have a good opening, it was just how big it would be. That question has now been answered with the latest in the series taking $139 million in its first three days in the US, and $283.5 million around the world. It’s the fifth biggest North American opening in history, but didn’t quite take the franchise record, which is still held by New Moon’s $142.8 million. It also scored the third biggest opening day gross ever, after the final Harry Potter and New Moon, taking $72 million in America on Friday.
The weekend’s other big opener didn’t have quite as much to cheer about, as Happy Feet Two landed with a rather tepid $22 million, about half what the first movie took when it opened. Warner knew they may face some competition for young females fromTwilight, but perhaps underestimated quite how much, as they’d predicted a $30 million plus opening.
However one other movie did outperform expectations – indeed going by per-theatre average, it outdid Breaking Dawn – and that’s George Clooney’s new movie The Descendants. The Hawaii set movie, directed by Sideways helmer Alexander Payne, took $1.2 million from only 27 screens. That’s a very impressive $42,000 per theatre, suggesting the film will do very well as it explands over the next few weeks.
Take a look below for the US box office top 10 for the weekend of November 18th-20th, 2011.
| Rank | Title | Weekend Gross (millions) | Total Gross to date (millions) |
| 1 | The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 | $139.5 | $139.5 |
| 2 | Happy Feet Two | $22.0 | $22.0 |
| 3 | Immortals | $12.2 | $52.9 |
| 4 | Jack And Jill | £12 | $41.0 |
| 5 | Puss In Boots | $10.7 | $122.3 |
| 6 | Tower Heist | $7.0 | $53.4 |
| 7 | J. Edgar | $5.9 | $20.6 |
| 8 | A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas | $2.9 | $28.3 |
| 9 | In Time | $1.6 | $33.4 |
| 10 | The Descendants | $1.2 | $1.3 |
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
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