Five films and over a billion dollars in worldwide grosses later, The Twilight Saga has finally concluded with Breaking Dawn Part 2, leaving Entertainment Weekly bereft of cover ideas and teenage girls, the most lucrative of all demographics, available for the next big thing—just as soon as they catch up with David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis on video, of course. At $141.3 million, Breaking Dawn Part 2 extended a remarkably consistent winning streak for the series, opening a few million above Part 1 and a few million below New Moon. Expanding to multiplexes after soaking a few arthouses for $80,000 per screen last week, Steven Spielberg’s widely acclaimed Lincoln earned a more than respectable $21 million for third place (behind Skyfall) and appears to be the clear Best Picture frontrunner, which should help it stick around long after the ephemeral rush of Breaking Dawn has faded.
The Oscar race saw two more hopefuls open to more ambiguous numbers: Despite spectacular early word from Toronto—where it won the Audience Award, which has proven to be a reliable awards-season bellwether with past winners like Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech—David O. Russell’s crowd-pleasing ensemble comedy Silver Linings Playbook did strong but not overwhelming business in relation to expectation, with $28,625 per screen on 16 screens. It goes a little wider on Wednesday and should gather steam once word-of-mouth takes hold: With the Weinsteins behind it, this will be the Shakespeare In Love to Lincoln’s Saving Private Ryan, but it will need mainstream acceptance to pull it off. The road looks much tougher, though, for Anna Karenina, the latest literary adaptation from director Joe Wright and star Keira Knightley, who had collaborated previously on Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. $19,688 per screen on 16 screens is a solid number, but the merely respectful reviews bode ill for its future.
For more detailed numbers, visit Box Office Mojo.