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.

General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser