Box Office: 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse' takes down 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen's' Wednesday record

Third 'Twilight' flick can't beat 'New Moon's' single day

By Gregory Ellwood Thursday, Jul 1, 2010 1:35 PM

Bryce Dallas Howard takes over the role of Victoria in "Eclipse"

Bryce Dallas Howard has officially starred in her biggest hit ever. Poor Rachelle Lefevre.

Credit: Summit Entertainment

One box office record has fallen, but another remains. "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" took off for a massive $68.5 million start on Wednesday. That figure breaks the previous Wednesday record-holder, last year's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen which made $62 million, but falls short of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon's" single day record of $72 million set this past November. It did however, also break the single-day summer record set by "The Dark Knight" in 2008 ($67.2 million).

"Eclipse" will next try to break the 3, 4, 5 and 6-day records set by "The Dark Knight" for total box office on its amazing run. The vampire sequel's best chance is with the $203.7 million 5-day tally "Transformers 2" came within $3 million of reaching. The 6-day mark is $222.1 million, but didn't include the July 4th holiday which usually finds moviegoers skipping the theater for BBQ's and fireworks displays.

Challenging "Eclipse" will be the still popular "Toy Story 3" and the debut of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender."

Look for continuing coverage of the holiday weekend box office on HitFix.

Gregory Ellwood
Editor-in-Chief, Co-Founder

With over a decade of experience in the movie industry, Ellwood survived working for two major studios and has written for Variety, MSN and the LA Times. A co-founder of HitFix, Ellwood spends his time relaxing hitting 3’s on the basketball court and following his beloved Clippers.