Inside the Twilight Box Office Success of New Moon
Now that the Twilight sequel New Moon has shattered the single day box office record and posted the third highest film debut of all time, should anyone be surprised by this Twilight Saga success? How will New Moon stack up when the numbers are tallied? Although the Stephenie Meyer penned Twilight Saga is the hottest, most popular literary to film series on the planet, with an estimated $140 million in domestic Twilight sales and nearly $260 million worldwide New Moon receipts in three days, the success of New Moon marks a new era of movie promotion and publicity that follows the box office popularity of The Dark Knight. While the popularity of both Twilight and New Moon is undeniable, the staggering box office numbers of New Moon as compared to the receipts of Twilight calls into question a variety of layers associated with the popularity of the Twilight Saga in the one year between the releases of Twilight in 2008 and New Moon in 2009. Interestingly, New Moon managed to double the box office success of Twilight in its opening weekend.
So what's behind the success of New Moon and how much will the Twilight sequel make when all the domestic numbers are counted? In looking ahead to the premiere of New Moon, earlier in 2009 we took a look at the box office tallies of some of the most popular and successful fan friendly films in recent years to get a Twilight gauge of the money New Moon might make. From the first two Harry Potter films and Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 to the first two Lord of the Rings movies and Star Wars The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, what we found was an interesting pattern of marginal gains or losses between some of the most popular debuts and sequels of the past twenty five years.
In terms of final domestic box office tallies, here's a look at what we found according to BoxOffoceMojo.com:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - $317,575,550
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,- $261,988,482
Spider-Man - $403,706,375
Spider-Man 2 - $373,585,825
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - $314,776,170
Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers - $339,789,881
Stars Wars: The Phantom Menace - $431,088,301
Stars Wars: Attack of the Clones - $302,191,252
Between 1999 and 2002, the domestic box office take for four of the most highly anticipated sequels of all time either marginally lost money from the first movie or gained revenue by a fairly small percentage. As compared to the phenomenon of New Moon, and the huge gap in three-day ticket sales between Twilight and New Moon, some of the most popular films on the level of Twilight followed a consistent box office pattern to a final total. If you look at the final domestic numbers, you can easily see the films gained or lost money off of their established core fan base. To large degree, the numbers of all four show a monetary cap of the fan base.
And then there's the domestic total of Batman Begins and the gargantuan U.S. success of The Dark Knight:
Batman Begins - $205,343,774
The Dark Knight - $533,345,358
Between 2005 and 2008, the Batman franchise saw a whopping increase of $328,001,584 in total box office dollars. Although The Dark Knight was unique in the fact that a dark, more violent and grittier tone breathed new life into the Bat franchise, plus the tragic death of Heath Ledger added to the mystique, the numbers were off the chart as compared to the pattern of the four previous hugely popular fan friendly films. Now, between Twilight in 2008 and 2009, New Moon has followed a similar pattern as The Dark Knight with an astonishing gap between films. How much of a gap? The final domestic box office numbers for Twilight clocked in at $191,465,414 while New Moon has already pulled in $140 million in three days. But why was there a closer pattern to earlier fan friendly films and sequels and such a gap between Twilight and New Moon?
Although you can look at the numbers many different ways, for the past year the Twilight Saga has been at the center of a media feeding frenzy of gargantuan proportions. The press has kept Twilight, New Moon and its stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner along with the supporting cast of New Moon in the public eye for each second of every day for an entire year. Is the Twilight Saga as popular as it appears? How popular would the Twilight Saga be if the media didn't keep it in the public eye for every second of 365 days? How much did the media contribute to the staggering opening weekend numbers of New Moon?
From a sociological level, it raises an interesting issue. If something is in the public eye for every second of each day, with people saying how great it is for an entire year, how long does it take for the constant visibility to influence the way people think? More importantly, how long does it take before it has an over inflated effect on box office numbers? If you've followed the popularity and media coverage of the Twilight Saga for the past year, it was New Moon insanity. Outlets from all genres got in on the action, many that had absolutely no business whatsoever reporting on the Twilight Saga. Why? Again, it's a numbers game behind the scenes.
But given how New Moon has almost surpassed the entire domestic take of Twilight in three days, it's clear a new age of promotion and publicity is here that involves everyone. Interestingly, only a few short years ago many producers and directors were wondering how films could eventually afford such skyrocketing promotion and publicity budgets aside from huge production costs. If you look at Twilight and New Moon, it appears the problem may be solved. Who needs a publicity budget when the masses will do it for free.
So, why didn't all of the new New Moon moviegoers turn out for Twilight?
-- Larson Hill
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xoxo
Carrie
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