New Moon earned an incredible $140 million during its first three days in release, moving the vampire love story into third place on the overall biggest opening weekend list. The second Twilight movie trails only The Dark Knight ($158 million) and Spider-Man 3 ($151 million) on the top earners list, surprising nearly everyone (except for some diehard Twilight fans). Also performing way above expectations was the Sandra Bullock football movie The Blind Side. New Moon and The Blind Side combined to help make their opening weekend the second biggest on record, in terms of overall box office take.

Top 10 Films for the Weekend Ending November 22 (Estimates)
1) New Moon - $140,700,000
2) The Blind Side - $34,500,000
3) 2012 - $26,500,000
4) Planet 51 - $12,600,000
5) Disney's A Christmas Carol - $12,200,000
6) Precious - $11,000,000
7) The Men Who Stare at Goats - $2,700,000
8) Couples Retreat - $1,900,000
9) The Fourth Kind - $1,700,000
10) Michael Jackson's This Is It - $1,500,000

_{(Photo © Summit Entertainment)}

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There's a New Moon on the rise and it's obliterating box office records. The second Twilight film grossed an estimated $72.7 million its first full day in release, pushing The Dark Knight and its $67 million first day into second place. And New Moon set this new record will showing on 800 less screens than The Dark Knight. Wow. Words fail me.

Twilight's opening in 2008 set the record for the biggest opening weekend for a film directed by a female. But New Moon blew past Twilight's entire opening weekend take of $69 million its first day.

The record for the biggest opening weekend overall is held by The Dark Knight with 158.4 million. It's likely New Moon will fall short of that record - but at this rate anything is possible.

More on New Moon:

• Meet the Wolfpack - Interviews with Tyson Houseman ('Quil'), Bronson Pelletier ('Jared') and Kiowa Gordon ('Embry')
  
• New Moon Movie Review
  
• New Moon Photo Gallery

_{(Photo © Summit Entertainment)}

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The Twilight Saga: New Moon's midnight release is one for the record books. New Moon hit 3,514 theaters at 12:01am this morning and shattered the midnight screening record set just this past July by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The sixth Harry Potter film took in $22.2 million during its debut screening at midnight. Twilight's second film of the series, New Moon, grossed an estimated $26.3 million, incredible numbers for the teen-centric vampire/werewolf/high school student love triangle.

Online ticketing agency Fandango is reporting New Moon sales of 10 tickets per second today, the film's first full day in release.

More on New Moon:

• New Moon Premiere Photos
  
• Review of New Moon Starring Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson
  
• Interviews with the Cast: Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Ashley Greene, and Michael Sheen

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Robert Pattinson (The Twilight Saga: New Moon) will be becoming intimately involved with Uma Thurman and Kristin Scott Thomas onscreen in Bel Ami, a dramatic film based on the story by Guy de Maupassant. de Maupassant's tale has been adapted numerous times before, the first being a German adaptation way back in 1939.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Thurman has signed up to play a Paris socialite who helps an ambitious journalist (Pattinson) rise to fame and later becomes his wife. Scott Thomas will co-star as another wealthy socialite who falls for Pattinson's character, George Duroy.

Pattinson told the press at the LA New Moon junket he believes Bel Ami will begin filming in February 2010.

Thurman will next be seen in the fantasy adventure Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Pattinson recently wrapped filming on the third Twilight movie, Eclipse, has Remember Me hitting theaters in March, and a starring role in Unbound Captives opposite Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in the works.

_{(Photo by Rob Loud/Getty Images)}

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