'ECLIPSE' TO HAUL $181M IN FIRST 6 DAYS; 'AIRBENDER' BEATS EXPECTATIONS (HWD)

By Paul Dergarabedian & Wiretap Staff

As expected Summit Entertainment's "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" topped the 4th-of-July box-office while Paramount's "The Last Airbender" had a stronger-than-expected debut.

"Eclipse's" debut was over the moon with some very impressive numbers:

Debut Theaters: 4,468 (a record)

Midnight Gross: $30 million (a record)

Wednesday Gross: $68.5 million (a record Wednesday gross and the 2nd biggest single-day gross ever)

Opening Weekend: $69 million (third best 4th-of-July weekend debut)

First Five Days: $161.8 million (2nd best for a Wed. opener, 7th best regardless of opening day)

First Six Days: An expected $181 million (would be the 2nd best for a Wednesday opener)

Great marketing, brand recognition and an audience of disciples who could not wait for the film to open gave "Eclipse" a monstrous debut. Notably 65% of the audience was female and they brought their dollars to the box-office with a vengeance.

IMAX once again proved itself as appealing to the fangirls as the fanboys with $8.2 million for the first five days and an expected $9.5 million for six days in just 193 theaters for a whopping per-theater average of nearly $50,000.

A huge surprise was the strong performance of "The Last Airbender" which earned $17 million on its opening Thursday and then went on to earn a solid $40.6 million for for the weekend and a four-day (Th-Sun) total of $53.2 million.

Families who loved "Karate Kid," must have seen "Airbender" as offering a family-friendly message in a brand new offering that gave a nice counter-programming alternative to the racier PG-13 rated themes of "Eclipse" and this clearly paid off for Paramount.

Disney's "Toy Story 3" continued its march toward the $300 million mark and the potential of a $400 million total domestic gross. With impressive mid-week grosses and a third weekend total of $30.2 million the film's incredible box-office trajectory is enough to make Buzz Lightyear proud and put a smile on the face of everyone at Disney and Pixar. Buzz and Woody are a global hit as well with $439.8 million in their worldwide toy chest.

In fourth was Sony's Adam Sandler ensemble comedy "Grown Ups" with $18.5 million in its second weekend and a total of $77.1 million thus far.

The top five was rounded out by Fox's "Knight and Day" with $10.2 million in its sophomore weekend. The Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz action comedy is now approaching the $50 million mark.

In indie action Fox Searchlight's critically acclaimed "Cyrus," starring Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly added 60 more theaters in its third weekend and jumped impressively into the top 10 with $770,256 and a per-theater average of over $10,000.

A 20% uptick from last year's 4th-of-July holiday weekend (when "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" was in its second week of release) puts us on the right track as we head into the last two months of the summer movie season.

Next week look out for Universal's 3-D animated "Despicable Me," Fox's reboot, "Predators" and Focus Features' well-reviewed "The Kids Are All Right."