The latest “Twilight” movie has plenty of daylight left with a second-straight win at the weekend box office.
“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1” raked in $42 million over the three-day weekend and $62.3 million in the five days since Thanksgiving.
Debuting at No. 2 was Disney’s family flick “The Muppets,” with sales of $29.5 million for the three-day weekend and a $42 million five-day holiday haul.
Three other family films rounded out the top-five: the Warner Bros. sequel “Pleased Feet Two” at No. 3 with a three-day total of $13.4 million and $18.4 million for five days; Sony’s animated comedy “Arthur Christmas” at No. 4 with $12.7 million for three days and $17 million for five days; and Paramount’s epic adventure “Hugo” at No. 5 with $11.4 million for three days and $15.4 million for five days.
Between “Breaking Dawn” and the blitz of family films, analysts thought Hollywood had a shot at record revenue over Thanksgiving, one of the year’s busiest weekends at theaters. But viewers did not come in anywhere close to record numbers.
“I was pretty surprised by this. I just thought this was the perfect combination of films in the marketplace,” said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker [...]