Weekend Box Office (11/18/12): Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2 scores $141m while Lincoln impresses with $21m.

The Twilight Saga ended as it began, kicking James Bond's ass to the curb with a massive opening weekend.  The fifth and final Twilight film debuted with $141 million over the weekend.  That's a touch higher than the $138 million debut of Breaking Dawn part 1 and just under the $142 million opening of New Moon over this weekend in 2011 and 2009 respectively, but we're still talking the kind of consistency that the Saw franchise would envy.  There are just ten films that have opened above $135 million and three of them are Twilight films.  Twilight 2, 4, and 5 now holds the 7th, 9th, and 8th biggest opening weekend respectively. Yes it was possible that Breaking Dawn part 2 (review/essay) would get a sort of series finale-bump over opening weekend, but in retrospect it was not entirely realistic.  This series frankly only plays to the fans at this point, with even casual fans coming out on opening weekend.  This isn't a series like Harry Potter, where fans who maybe missed an entry or two along the way and/or saw the prior films in theaters later in their respective runs rushed out to catch the finale on opening weekend.  If you wanted to see the newest Twilight, you were probably a hardened fan who absolutely ventured out on opening weekend every time.  So yeah, this isn't a series that gained new fans after the second installment so there wasn't much room for growth even for this caper (it played 79% female and 50% over 25 years old).  There also isn't much to discuss in terms of domestic totals.  The series has infamously short legs, and so it's probable that the picture did 50% of its business already.  So let's presume a $285-295 million domestic total.  Worldwide, the film has already grossed $340 million globally putting it on track to equal the over/under $700 million totals of the last three pictures.  

If The Dark Knight Rises ends up being based on 'Prey', which lucky leading lady will get this choice role?

Who should get this plum role? Anne Hathaway? Blake Lively? Rachel Weisz? Keira Knightly? Naomi Watts? Or how about Natalie Portman, fresh off her Oscar win for Black Swan? Her name is Catherine and she's the mayor's daughter. She has two or three scenes in the first two (of five) chapters of "Prey" where she engages in debate regarding the usefulness of Batman in Gotham City. Then she gets abducted in chapter three, as part of a plot by Hugo Strange to frame Batman and turn the city against him. Catherine spends literally the entire remainder of the five-part saga stripped to her bra and panties, gagged, and chained to a bed. Oh, and as for Catwoman, she's barely in it. And we wonder why it's so hard to get females to start reading mainstream superhero comic books...

Scott Mendelson