New Moon brings in the $$$$

POWER IN NUMBERS. Holy $#%*. That's a lot of cash!

According to latimes

Vampires and werewolves kept their grip on teenage girls at the multiplex this weekend, as the fourth installment in the “Twilight” franchise had the fifth-best domestic opening of all time at the box office.

“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1” raked in $139.5 million, according to an estimate from distributor Summit Entertainment. While that was an impressive opening, “Breaking Dawn” still fell just short of breaking the $142.8-million opening weekend record held by the second installment in the series, 2009's “New Moon.”

“Happy Feet Two,” the weekend’s only other new release, did not have as much to smile about. The 3-D animated sequel starring dancing penguins collected a disappointing $22 million.

Heading into the weekend, Summit said it was not expecting “Breaking Dawn” to gross more than $125 million this weekend, though prerelease audience surveys had forecasted an opening of as much as $150 million.

Richie Fay, Summit's domestic distribution president, surmised that “Breaking Dawn” may have opened to a slightly lower figure than “New Moon” because the “Twilight” audience is “aging up.”

“As we all know, as folks get older, the impulse to get out and be the first one to see the movie isn’t there,” Fay said. He said he still expects the film to ultimately gross around $700 million worldwide, about the sum the last two "Twilight" films ended up collecting globally.

"Breaking Dawn,” which stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, features a highly anticipated wedding and dramatic high-risk pregnancy. The Bill Condon-directed film -- which has received the worst critical reviews of any movie in the series -- cost Summit about $110 million to produce after tax rebates.

Those who saw the film this weekend -- an 80% female crowd -- assigned it an average grade of B+, according to market research firm CinemaScore. (“Happy Feet Two” received the same grade.)

Overseas, where Summit has presold the film to local distributors, "Breaking Dawn" grossed $144 million in 54 foreign markets, including Mexico, Spain and Australia.