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Shalimar Sahota: Summit Entertainment ought to be thrilled. They're emerging as quite the formidable studio, all thanks to the "grow it big cream" that is The Twilight Saga. Matthew makes a good point about releasing sequels within months of each other. The next one, Breaking Dawn, supposedly won't be released till November 2011, by which time the fan base would have grown in numbers and be salivating for another Twilight film.

Kim Hollis: I'm sure that Summit was hoping for a little bit more, but there's no way they're unhappy with his result. The Twilight series continues to chug along and pull in ridiculous cash in comparison to its relatively low budget. They acquired the rights to this series for next to nothing and it's turned into a massive, massive cultural touchstone.

Tim Briody: If the Summit execs are not rolling around in the piles and piles of money the Twilight series has made them, I will be very disappointed.

David Mumpower: The consensus opinion is that we clearly believe this is another masterstroke of good fortune for Summit Entertainment. I suspect that what you will read in the coming days is that there is cause for concern that the franchise is slipping. But let's presume for a moment that New Moon had never occurred. What we would be discussing is a franchise that went from $70 million in three days to $160 million in five days. That's the type of spike usually reserved for movies starring Jack Sparrow. Anytime we compare a film to the second largest opening of all-time, we're being unreasonable with our expectations, even if it's a direct sequel. The only title on the release schedule I am relatively certain will outperform its predecessor that is on this same scale is the sequel to The Dark Knight. The determination on every other title is relative. Some of these are not rocket science. When a $65 million budgeted film earns this much in its first week, it's epic.

Are the Twi-Hards jumping ship?

Kim Hollis: We note in the weekend wrap-up that Eclipse's performance is showing a downtick compared to what New Moon did in November of 2009. Do you think the lower box office is due to the release pattern (Wednesday opening versus Friday opening), the calendar configuration (November versus June), a decline in interest or some other reason?

Josh Spiegel: I would imagine a combination of all three factors. Obviously, it's the summer, so the target audience doesn't need to see the movie on the weekend. I doubt this movie will have great weekday numbers, but there aren't any schools in session to hold teenage girls from checking this out on a Thursday. It's also clear that the Wednesday opening, plus the July 4th weekend, makes the numbers analysis a bit more frustrating. There may be a minor lack of interest from those people who hadn't read the book series, heard about the first film, checked out New Moon, disliked or hated it, and decided not to check out Eclipse. Unlike the Harry Potter series, Twilight's core fan base is what it is, and if you don't want to see the movie (like, say, me), you're not going to.

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