There can't be that many of you left who haven't looked at the intertubes since Saturday - and if you haven't, we're guessing you were a part of the world-wide throng who were watching Twilight: New Moon on its opening day/weekend. Every. Single. Session of it. So if you're on of the few who's been too busy swooning to have heard the news, let us confirm it for you: The R-Pattz / K-Stew / T-Laut show has smashed the opening day box office record, ringing up an estimated $72.7 million and change on Day 1 - and that's just in the US.
This is more than double the Day 1 take of Twilight, and of course edges out previous record-holder The Dark Knight. But before anybody protests that Chris Weitz's vampire/werewolf mope-off is a good 45 minutes shorter than Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel (enabling it to fit in more sessions per day), it's important to remember that New Moon reached its total on fewer screens and at fewer sites, which pretty much evens out the balance; fair and square, folks.
Additionally, more than a third of the record-beating sum ($26.3 million is the current estimate) was taken from midnight screenings - another Bat-surpassing record, comfortably past its $18.5 million.
Once these figures were announced, pretty much the only surprise was that the Twilight sequel didn't continue its storming run through the entire weekend. Again, concrete figures are yet to be announced, but box office bean-counters are confident that New Moon will now sit at the number three spot on the all-time opening weekend chart; **The Dark Knight **will remain at number one, and Spider-Man 2 doesn't look in any great danger of losing second place. The fact that Friday was the biggest day suggests that the results were somewhat "front-loaded", and that the film won't continue to the sort of mammoth numbers that Dark Knight did, but it's still a storming result for the vamp franchise.
Elsewhere in the charts, the Sandra Bullock-starring sports drama The Blind Side saw its stars overcome a cliched trailer huge odds to take $34.5m, the best-ever opening for a sports drama and about twice what it was expected to take. Animated sci-fi comedy Planet 51 opened to $12.6m, a disappointing opening but one that probably reflects the value of a named animation brand like Pixar or Dreamworks; Planet 51 came from newcomer Ilion Animation Studios.
UK box office results to follow (and probably follow suit in relation to New Moon). For the rest of the US results, head on over to **Box Office Mojo.