Utahns prove love for 'New Moon'

The Twilight saga began with books that sparked a national cultural phenomenon and more than 350 Internet fan sites. Over the weekend, the second movie in the series set box office records that reconfirmed Utah Twilight fans are the most devoted in the nation.

Megaplex Theatres in South Jordan, Sandy and The Gateway in Salt Lake City ranked first, second and fifth in the nation for total revenue from the opening of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon."

The fact those rankings are based on total revenue when movie tickets in Utah cost significantly less than in New York and Los Angeles makes the performance of the Salt Lake-area theaters particularly impressive, said Blake Anderson, general manager of Mexaplex Theatres.

In all five Utah Megaplex Theatres locations, close to 190,000 movie-goers saw "New Moon" this past weekend.

More than 2,000 of those fans attended VIP events hosted by the theater, including "Fangs or Fur" parties inspired by the Edward versus Jacob face-off in the film.

Nationwide, "New Moon" raked in $72.7 million on Friday to break the single-day domestic box office record previously held by "The Dark Knight," which had a $67.2 million opening day last year.

The Friday haul for the "Twilight" sequel included a record $26.3 million from midnight screenings alone.

Those records prove the appetite for the series is only growing.

"New Moon" took in a total of $142.8 million on opening weekend. That debut was more than twice the $69.6 million haul over the same weekend last year for "Twilight," the first in the franchise based on Stephenie Meyer's novels.

"New Moon" placed third on the all-time domestic chart behind last year's $158.4 million opening weekend for the Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight" and 2007's $151.1 million haul for "Spider-Man 3."

Among the top-10 all-time openings, "New Moon" is the only one that came outside of Hollywood's busiest time, the summer season.

The movie adaptation of Meyer's next Twilight chapter, "Eclipse," arrives in the heart of summer, next June 30.

Utah's Twilight craze seems to be building, too.

Megaplex Theatres already has a list of Twilight fans planning to purchase entire theaters for "Eclipse."

Contributing: Associated Press

e-mail: bbrown@desnews.com