The Twilight Saga: Eclipse sets box office record

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse featuring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart amassed more than 30 million US dollars from midnight screenings on Wednesday.

According to distributor Summit Entertainment, the record goes beyond its earlier feat of 26.3 million US dollars set by its predecessor, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the report said.

The new midnight record is even more impressive considering Eclipse managed it in the middle of the week. And more is expected with the Fourth of July weekend ahead, when Eclipse is positioned for a colossal first five days.

But when a movie franchise tops the billion-dollar mark, there is always a good reason and it may not be the obvious one. The Twilight Saga’s popularity is often seen as a victory of beauty over content–it’s successful because the actors are soooo hot!–but that has never been enough. Lots of other movies with gorgeous young actors never make it big.

The teasing sexuality, in which abstinence becomes sexy, is certainly part of it, but still not enough. There is an incredibly strong sense of landscape, heightened by the lowering skies of the Pacific north-west, where it is set. This place doesn’t look like America but some cold, wet kingdom of mountains and fir trees, where strange creatures fly through the air. It’s almost Middle Earth for teenage girls–not with Hobbits but vampires with eyes like topaz and the prettiest Native Americans you’ve ever seen.

Tolkien was almost completely sexless but The Twilight Saga is in a permanent state of arousal. Stephenie Meyer, the writer of the phenomenally successful novels, has tapped into a desire for female-driven fantasy which reflects the real passion of young lives–and that is where this series strikes gold.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is expected to take more than $150 million over the coming weekend.