Step Up 3D opened in third place this weekend with $15 million.  That’s pretty good, although it is the lowest of the series so far; the first Step Up four years ago made over $20 million.

Meanwhile, Zac Efron’s Charlie St. Cloud dropped to eighth place with $5 million.  The movie is doing similarly, but better, to Robert Pattinson’s romantic drama Remember Me from earlier this year.

This past Thursday, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse surpassed $250 million at the U.S. box office, and by the end of the weekend its worldwide total will be over $500 million.  That’s half of a billion dollars.

That’s about on a par with what The Twilight Saga: New Moon had done at this point; New Moon ultimately grossed $709 million worldwide.

So will it beat Eclipse for the weekend?

Short answer: it might.  New Moon dropped quite a lot from its first weekend to its second, and if Eclipse does the same, Despicable Me could be the #1 movie this weekend.  Even so, it doesn’t have much chance of catching up to Eclipse’s total box office — already over $200 million.

From Thursday to Monday, Airbender has made about $70 million, which is much better than anyone was expecting, especially considering the competition it faced from Eclipse.  The movie was planned to be the first of a trilogy (mirroring the three seasons that the show Avatar: The Last Airbender had on Nickelodeon), and chances look pretty good right now that the sequels will get made.

That didn’t beat, but is essentially on par with, New Moon’s $179 million over Thanksgiving weekend, and Spider-Man 2’s all-time July 4th record of $180 million.

Outside the U.S., the movie has already made $100 million, meaning that in total, Eclipse has already made well over a quarter billion dollars.  Crazy.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

If it makes $20 million on Monday, which many people will have off for the Fourth of July holiday, it’ll beat Spider-Man 2’s six-day July 4th record of $180 million.  But even if it doesn’t, it’s a pretty stunning accomplishment — New Moon made $296 million in its entire run, which Eclipse is now bound to surpass.

The Last Airbender is also doing surprisingly well; according to Entertainment Weekly, it could make $60-70 million by the end of the long weekend.  We’ll keep you updated!

New Moon, which opened on a Friday, still holds the overall biggest-day record, with $72 million.  Stay tuned…

That’s significantly better than other wannabes like Prince of Persia, Robin Hood, and The A-Team have done in their opening weekends lately.

The movie stars Jaden Smith, Will Smith’s son, and featured a new song from Justin Bieber, who tweeted yesterday:

just found out my lil bro Jaden Smith just shocked the world with KARATE KID opening at #1 at the box office!! NEVER SAY NEVER!!!

The movie stars Amanda Seyfried, who also scored a hit a few months ago with Dear John, and Christopher Egan (both pictured).

Another romantic comedy, Just Wright, opened in fourth, while How to Train Your Dragon was in fifth and has now made over $200 million.  A Nightmare on Elm Street, which features Kellan Lutz, came in sixth and has made $56 million so far.

Next weekend, Shrek Forever After opens and will likely become the #1 movie easily.

The new romantic comedy The Back-Up Plan opened in second place with $12 million.

Further down the top ten, Disney’s nature documentary Oceans opened with $6 million, Miley Cyrus’s The Last Song broke the $50 million mark, and Alice in Wonderland surpassed $325 million.

On opening day, it was the biggest movie in the country with $5 million.  The strategy was to get it in theaters before other weekend movies like Clash of the Titans opened, and it looks like it worked.

Meanwhile, last week’s #1 movie, How to Train Your Dragon, made another $29 million and has already almost made $100 million.

How to Train Your Dragon

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which opened better than expected last week, made another $10 million and has made $36 million total.

Meanwhile, just below the top ten, Robert Pattinson’s Remember Me made $2 million in its third weekend and has now taken in $17 million.  And in limited release, Kristen Stewart’s The Runaways made a half million from 237 theaters.

Next weekend, Miley Cyrus’s The Last Song finally hits theaters as a nice romantic alternative to the big-budget Clash of the Titans.

Alice in Wonderland

Based on the popular book series, it made $22 million, slightly higher than the new Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy The Bounty Hunter.

In its second weekend, Robert Pattinson’s Remember Me came in 10th with $3.3 million.  It hasn’t done as well as was hoped, but on the bright side it will soon surpass its budget of $16 million.

Alice in Wonderland, meanwhile, made $35 million and will eventually take in more than $300 million easily.

Alice in Wonderland

Remember Me, the new movie starring Robert Pattinson, debuted in fourth place (under Green Zone and She’s Out of My League) with $8.3 million.  Unfortunately, that’s lower than what the studio was hoping for and what people were expecting.

Anybody catch it this weekend?  Did it deserve to do better — you know, aside from the obviously plus side of Rob being in it?

Alice in Wonderland

That’s the biggest March opening ever, and the biggest opening ever for a 3D movie.

Further down the top 10 list, Percy Jackson made another $5 million and Valentine’s Day jumped past a total gross of $100 million.

Were you one of the millions who saw Alice in Wonderland this weekend?  What’d you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSqbqH16qE0

So as Twilight fans are still discussing the whole one movie versus two movie thing, another possible switch for Breaking Dawn is causing a big-time stir. It just got rumored around Hollywood that the final flick might be in 3D. Now maybe at a first thought, it sounds exciting and cool and maybe you’re actually really digging this vivid silver screen feature.

Oddly, there are a ton of Twilight fans who are NOT happy about it. It’s likely that Summit is definitely on-board with the 3D option as it almost guarantees more profits at the box office.

Are you happy with Breaking Dawn in 3D?  Hit the comments section and tell us how you feel about this!

The Lovely Bones, which has been a big hit with teen girls (in one poll, 70% of the audience under 18 gave the movie an “A”) made $17 million. It’s based on the bestselling book by Alice Sebold and stars Saoirse Ronan, from City of Ember.

Meanwhile, The Spy Next Door, which features Lucas Till from Hannah Montana: The Movie, made $9.7 million.

Next week, the major new releases — Legion and Tooth Fairy — don’t look particularly noteworthy, though the Christian-themed teen flick To Save a Life will open in select cities and might be interesting.

Like most other films, it saw bump over the long holiday break.  The weekend before Christmas it made $4.4 million, then dropped to $3 million on Christmas weekend only to see its grosses bounce up to $3.4 million over New Year’s weekend.

Once everybody started going back to school, business fell as expected and it made $1.7 million this past weekend.

Overall, that gives it a total gross of $290.7 million and counting – easily one of the top five movies released in ‘09.

If you count international grosses, it’s also surpassed its #4 competitor, the huge comedy hit The Hangover.

Of course, New Moon is far from done.  It’s at $268 million in the U.S. right now, and it should pass Up’s $293 million in the coming weeks.  It also has a shot at reaching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’s $302 million.  If so, that’ll put it at #2 for the year (behind only Transformers 2).

I’m sure many of you have already seen it more than once, but…anybody planning on going again?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V37qD47r4BU

New Moon opened with a 142.8-million-dollar domestic opening – impressive box office results, by any standards. In fact, it’s been all over the news how this Twilight follow-up had such fanatical fans as well as cultlike appeal, that it just must have set records.

But now industry insiders are speaking out to clear up the confusion. Apparently, New Moon did not break the big-time record at the box office for opening weekend, on a whole. Still holding its number one spot is The Dark Knight, and even at number two is Spider-Man 3. That being said, New Moon basically doubled – yep, times twoed – the sales for the original Twilight opening weekend. So, that’s great news for Twilight fans!

So if that’s New Moon’s figures, how will Eclipse fare?  Hit the comments section below and weigh in on the future take!

A few number s reported by the Hollywood Reporter article include “in Australia, the movie took in AUS$1.7 million ($1.6 million)” and  in France “it was No. 1 with 488,000 admissions, translating to $4.26 million, from 751 theaters”.   In Italy it is reported the movie has brought in $2.7 million and Spain $2.2 million.

Of course Summit Entertainment is lowering expectations, privately saying that the Twilight sequel will do $85 million from 4,000+ theaters on Friday, including Thursday midnights. That’s despite all the hype and sold out screenings…my quick survey of box office analysts shows that Hollywood is expecting New Moon to do Iron Man numbers, or $100M.

The first Twilight made $70 million in its opening weekend from 400 fewer theaters.  It’s been a year and the hype has only built since then, enough to make it the #1 advanced ticket seller ever.  So can it make $100 million?  Sure.  Heck, I bet it will do more than $110.

The Vampire’s Assistant

So despite the popularity of Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and True Blood on HBO, I guess not just anything about vampires is guaranteed to be successful.  The interesting thing is that Paul Weitz directed The Vampire’s Assistant, and his own brother, Chris Weitz, is directing New Moon.

Any fans of Cirque du Freak out there?  Have you caught the movie yet?