The box office is looking to heat up this Fourth of July weekend.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has already made a huge splash by opening Wednesday to a record $30 million gross for midnight screenings and a $68 million first-day total. The film opened with a high theater count of 4,416, expected to grow to 4,468 for the weekend.
The only major new release competing with the sparkly vampire angst-fest is The Last Airbender, a live-action adaptation of the popular Nick cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Opening Thursday on some 3,169 theaters, the film is getting a stereoscopic 3D version that should boost the gross.
Reviews, however, have been extremely weak, and box office prognosticators give the M. Night Shyamalan-directed Airbender little chance of challenge Eclipse for the top spot.
Also still in release is Disney-Pixar’s Toy Story 3, which won two consecutive weekends at the box office and has a domestic total gross of $251 million. It’s sure to add a significant sum to that total.
Also still in play are DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek Forever After, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and How to Train Your Dragon.
