New Moon roars at the box office

The Twilight Saga: New Moon sent a roar out through the world box office after scoring huge figures over its opening weekend.

Hitting screens on 19 November, midnight showings and a strong overall first day saw the movie hit $72.7 million in ticket receipts. Following this the vampire sequel went on to rack up $140.7 million in the US, on approximately 8,500 screens at 4,024 sites over the weekend. This quite astonishingly places the film as the third highest opening in US box office history, with it now sitting behind Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight within this category. In addition to this hefty sum, foreign sales of $118 million take the overall total up to $258.8 million, making this the seventh highest worldwide opening ever.

Reviews have been fair to middling for this second cinematic entry in Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga, but judging by these promising figures New Moon will enjoy greater financial success than its predecessor, which pulled in $69.6 million on its opening day before completing a $384.9 million total worldwide gross.

These figures come courtesy of Box Office Mojo.