Twilight sets records

By Brendan Swift and Emma Brown

The Twilight franchise has continued its box office domination with the third instalment of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse carving out multiple top 10 Australian records.

The vampire love story grossed more than $12.99 million since last Thursday ranking it as the eigth biggest Australian opening weekend of all time.

It also posted the fourth highest opening day of all time with more than $4.42 million, just behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon in third place with $5.04 million. The final Lord of the Rings instalment, The Return of the King, still holds the first spot with $5.29 million.

Eclipse also broke the record for the sixth highest number of opening screens in Australian history with 536. Baz Luhrmann's Australia holds the record with 634 screens.

The result is a coup for local distributor Hoyts, which has distributed the film on more screens than any other in its history. The film's screen average was $24,236.

The film has also performed strongly overseas with an estimated wordwide gross of $US261.2 million to date compared to its budget of about $US68 million, according toDeadline Hollywood.

Eclipse is the third screen adaptation of the top-selling Stephenie Meyer novel about a love triangle between brooding vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), his human love Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner).

Meanwhile, Disney's Toy Story 3 has continued to perform strongly at the Australian box office in its second week, posting a 13 per cent decline to take $6.4 million. It has now taken $18.35 million in total. The Paramount-distributed Shrek Forever After also posted a 13 per cent decline in its third week to take $2.41 million, boosting its total to $17.84 million.

Among Australian films, Animal Kingdom took a further $317,867 – a 26 per cent drop in its fifth week – across 74 screens. It has now taken more than $3.66 million in total.

Source: MPDAA