Twilight Breaking Dawn Takes Worldwide Gross To $489 Million

Twilight Breaking Dawn - Part 1 took $42 million domestically over the weekend and $62.3 million over the 'Thanksgiving period' from Wednesday to Sunday -keeping it firmly at the top of the box office. The continuing commercial success of the movie has taken total domestic gross to $221.3 million, with the worldwide gross now reaching $489.3 million.

Despite moving into its second week of release, the penultimate Twilight movie still toppled Disney's new family flick 'The Muppets', which had to settle for second place with a total of $29.5 million for the three-day weekend and $42 million over the five day holiday, according to ABC News. Elsewhere, the Warner Bros sequel Happy Feet 2 performed disappointingly on its way to taking $18.4 million, while Sony's animated comedy Arthur Christmas, starring James McAvoy and Bill Nighy took just $17 million. The relatively low takings are surprising, given analysts were predicting a huge Thanksgiving weekend for the family friendly movies. Hollywood.com box office tracker Paul Dergarabedian said, "I was pretty surprised by this. I just thought this was the perfect combination of films in the marketplace.Maybe there was just too much out there". Studio executives are conceding that it's growing increasingly harder to bring in the big crowds given all the video games and electronic devices that are available nowadays, but expectations for this Thanksgiving were huge. Dave Hollis, head of distribution for Disney, suggested the sheer choice on offer may have ultimately affected figures, saying, "I don't know that choice is ever a bad thing, and in terms of a weekend for families, this is one of the best.The challenge is breaking through and being relevant and meaningful and fresh enough to take the more finicky customers and have them choose you".

Despite taking almost half a billion worldwide, even Twilight Breaking Dawn suffered lower box office numbers than expected. Factoring in higher ticket prices, the movie's audience has shrank significantly from 2008's New Moon.