Twilight, the novel, was released in 2005. The film adaptation was released in 2008 and grossed $193 million. The sequel, New Moon, came out last weekend and grossed just shy of $141 million (almost 3/4 of Twilight‘s total gross). In doing so, it set the record for third-biggest opening weekend of all time (not to mention biggest opening day ever). Here are the movies that beat it:
The Dark Knight: $158 million
Spider-Man 3: $151 million
Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Spider-man first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962. What it took these brands 70 and 47 years to accomplish, respectively, Twilight did in 4.
Are we getting better at branding?
Maybe. Look at the movie that New Moon replaced at number three. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which grossed over $135 million in its opening weekend. While the Pirates ride had existed for almost 40 years at that point, it’s unlikely that the ride led to the great turnout. Three years from Pirates 1 to Pirates 2 if you want to count the branding as beginning with the film, not the ride.
Two of the top ten opening weekends of all time actually belong to the Shrek franchise which, while based on a book eleven years old by the time the first film came out, is more likely to credit its success to the success of the original film in the series. Six years from the original to number three, which had the biggest opening of the franchise.
Technically, though, of the top ten biggest opens, which represent seven franchises (Batman, Spider-Man, Twilight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek, Transformers, and Star Wars), Twilight is still the youngest brand represented by far.
To be honest, I have no idea how it generated so much heat so quickly. Although two points stand out in my mind.
1. The audience is, by far, more female than for any of the other six franchises.
2. Harry Potter, another teen fantasy novel series, never had this kind of success, and doesn’t currently have even one entry in the top ten. Its best effort in that regard, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, made around $102 million in its opening weekend, landing it at #12 overall.
Does having a mostly female audience allow you to trend more quickly? What’s the fundamental difference between the Harry Potter franchise and the Twilight franchise?
It’s no coincidence that 9 of the top 10 opens are sequels. So the most important branding still seems to happen with film number one. The only non-sequel on that list, the first Spider-Man, may be the only brand that truly took decades to build to that point.
Incidentally, the biggest open for a film with no history (not based on a comic, game, toy, book, TV show, etc.) is The Incredibles, which made $70 million in its opening weekend (less than New Moon made in one day) landing it at #36 on the list. (Oh, and two of the next three films on the list that fit that criteria – Finding Nemo and Up – are both Pixar films).
It’s not much of a shock that the big-ass opening weekend is a brand-driven enterprise, but it seems the brands are taking less time to build.
[...] all my pontificating about New Moon, I kind of forgot to mention that Blind Side, which I expected to make no more than $37 million, is [...]