14 hours ago pre-sales started here in Germany.
There are triple features on Saturday July 10th and regular previews on Wednesday July 14th (movie opens July 15th) and the first couple of shows are already sold out, theaters are adding additional screens as we speak while theater websites crash because of heavy traffic...
And we're talking about a movie opening two months from now!

The hype is far from over...

Girls will teach nerds a lesson again on how to go about crushing opening records.

Yup, the website of the theatre I am going to has been crashing all day today.

This is true to it's core. It won't beat TDK because of the Wednesday opening. But the Wednesday (definitely) and overall single day (probably) records could both go down. The only other box office record I could see going down this summer is Saturday gross (Spider-man 3: 51.336M) by Toy Story 3D.

It will also set new milestones for frontloading.

This should do better than what New Moon did over here. New Moon got crushed by Avatar and never recovered (opened the same weekend as Avatar). It also didn't pass the first Twilight ($2.2m vs. $1.9m).

You mean in Hong Kong? Have they started selling tickets there? And how many IMAX screen are they giving to Eclipse?

Yes. No. Don't know.

Just making a general assumption.

New Zealand: Over 7,000 tickets sold in 17 theatres, which will translate to about NZ$83,000 for Eclipse and about $30,000 each for Twilight and New Moon considering a little over 3,000 of them are for the triple feature. This is nowhere near all the theatres in the country. New Moon grossed 'over $200,000' in midnights, which can't be far from the record as ROTK did $250,000 and TTT $180,000.

8/41 showings in 22 theatres sold-out for Eclipse only and 5/22 showings in 13 theatres sold-out for the triple feature.

Seriously I love watching all this insanity with sold out shows 2 months before the release.

When will they start selling Eclipse tickets in US?

Last month IMAX tickets went on sale.

Here in US they went on sale today. I got my 4, so now I just have to not lose them in the next month and a half. It's obviously #1 on Fandango, with Robin Hood #2, IM2 #3, Sex and the City 2 #4, and IM2 IMAX #5. Juliet was #5 until Eclipse appeared.

This really is crazy. It is still disappointing that the studios decided this to run on Wednesday. This could have surely taken the weekend record this summer. Even the overseas total should be good since New Moon did pretty well overseas.

The biggest problem for ECLIPSE is the falling Euro and Pound...

When NEW MOON was released the Euro was worth $1.49 and the Pound $1.66,
right now it is $1.24 and $1.45...

So $100m out of the Euro Zone in November suddenly becomes $83m....

Mark, do you think Eclipse will beat New Moon#s opening admissions-wise in Germany?

I think it'll be very close...within 100,000 admissions whichever way it goes.

I think so too, but in the end it will depend on the weather...
Thursday to Saturday will be good regardless of weather because of pre-sales, so Sunday might be the deciding factor...

And Twilight will probably pass 3 million admissions then too...

Darling Nikki:

Summit Entertainment is disclosing that THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE had "an incredible start". Despite great weather and the World Cup, ECLIPSE launched with an estimated $16.2M from 21 markets. The only major territories that opened on June 30th were Italy, Brazil, and CIS. Other majors like Spain, Australia and Mexico launch today. France, Germany, S. Korea and Japan will launch in the weeks to come. Here are some highlights of opening day results:

ITALY - No. 1 and the 3rd best opening of all time with an estimated €2.550M and counting from 638 playdates. ECLIPSE outgrossed the opening day of HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX and ICE AGE 3D and outperformed NEW MOON's opening of €1.934M.

BELGIUM - No. 1, the highest opening day of all time ousting HARRY POTTER 5 (587K Euros) and outperforming HARRY POTTER 1,2,3,4. The opening day grossed an estimated €875K and counting, with approx 89K+ admissions, including the super successful midnight shows

BRAZIL - An incredible No. 1 start in Brazil with an estimated 4.3M Reals from 310 play dates. The opening day was stronger than that of HARRY POTTER's 4.015M Reals. ECLIPSE has also bested NEW MOON's opening day which tallied 3.7M Reals.

RUSSIA (C.I.S.)
Also, off to a roaring start. Day1 totaled 122M RR (~$3.9M USD) with 729,785 admissions. More than double NEW MOON's opening day of 50,479,306 RR ($1.8M) with 313,124 admissions.

S. AFRICA (plus East & West African territories) - Highest grossing ever Wednesday opening in S. Africa. The opening day grossed R2 301 525 lc from 75 playdates. Midnight screenings took 549 454 lc from 22 sites. This is 3% bigger than the NEW MOON midnight screenings. Total cume to date for SA is R2 850 979 lc and market cume for all of Africa is R2 887 293 lc.

THE PHILIPPINES - ECLIPSE off to a record-breaking start in The Philippines, grossing an estimated 57M pesos, this not only surpasses NEW MOON's opening day of 35M pesos, but also should beat out SPIDERMAN 3 (55M pesos) to become the highest opening day of all time.

TURKEY - It was a record-breaking opening day for ECLIPSE in Turkey, garnering 126.916 admissions and 1.045.547,5 TL GBO from 376 playdates. Comparatively, this marks a radical 42% increase in admissions and 22% increase in GBO from NEW MOON. Now ECLIPSE had the all time best opening Wednesday for a foreign film.

SPAIN (July 1st opening) - Another No. 1 opening with €1.6M from 1014. Night and Midnight screenings garnered over €1.08M. Opening day grosses are ahead of LOTR III. Grosses from the first two screenings has over performed NEW MOON by + 52% with the same number of screenings.

GREECE - Day 1 results totaled 448,905€ with 51,012 admissions off 118 screens. This represents a growth of more than 50% from NEW MOON's opening and more than triples TWILIGHT's first day. Ranks as fifth in the top opening box office day in the last five seasons.

HUNGARY - ECLIPSE's opening day Wednesday had 27,494 admissions with box office of 30,401,530 HUF from 43 prints. Including midnight screening previews, Hungary is currently at 36,858 admissions with a box office of 41,396,740 HUF or approximately $177K. As the standard release date in Hungary is Thursday, this Wednesday result has more than tripled TWILIGHT's opening weekend admissions of 10,019 and opening week's admissions of 13,588.

POLAND - ECLIPSE is off to a fastc start in Poland. Wednesday (including midnight screenings) resulted in 120,744 admissions in Poland with a box office of 1,900,301 PLN ($562K USD) on 144 prints. The title was screened in three cinema chains: Cinema City, Multikino, and Helios on 144 prints. This result is more than TWILIGHT's entire opening weekend box office (1,545,735 PLN / 88,848 adm). ECLIPSE opening day is 13% more than NEW MOON's opening day (1,680,347 PLN / 107,905 adm). NEW MOON had a more concentrated 3 day weekend opening on a Friday.

NORWAY - ECLIPSE opened in Norway with 62.873 adm, including midnight screening and a B.O 5,496,841 NOK. This result bests NEW MOON, which tallied 5,140,659 NOK and opened on a Friday!

DENMARK - ECLISPE continued to dominate with 41,890 adm and a BO of 4,512,431 and 58,897 adm off 80 playdates, outdoing NEW MOON's Friday opening of 3.26M DKK from 43.173 admissions off 65 playdates.

SWEDEN - ECLIPSE opened with 8,131,813 SEK from 79,483 admissions. This looks to be the best Wednesday opening ever in Sweden and the second best opening day ever after Harry Potter and the order of Phoenix. NEW MOON brought in 6,410,153 on its opening day (including midnights).

FINLAND - ECLIPSE's opening day cume was 272.707€ from 32K admission and 87 playdates. This is the second biggest Wednesday opening ever, behind RETURN OF THE KING (304.601€), and ahead of THE TWO TOWERS (240.602€).

http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/eclipse ... more-51311

Huge opening days right across the board, it's nice to see it's keeping the opening powers of New Moon and extending it further in local dollars.....in US$ may be just about the same unfortunately.

Some Comparisons:

Harry Potter 6: HBP - $45.8m (Wed - 33 territories)
The Da Vinci Code - $43m (incl. some Wednesday openings)
Spiderman 3 - $29.2m (Tue - France/Germany/Italy/Japan/SKorea - 18 markets)
Harry Potter 5: OOTP - $29.2m (Wed - France/Germany/Italy/Spain/Australia/Holland/Brazil/SKorea)
Lord Of The Rings: ROTK - $23.5m (19 territories)
The Matrix: Revolutions - $18.8m (80c/107ter/10,013tc/18,013pc)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse - $16.2m (Italy/Spain/Russia/Turkey - 21 markets)
Lord Of The Rings: TTT - $15.58m (14 territories)
War Of The Worlds - $13.35m (46 territories/4958 locations)
Pirates Of The Caribbean 3: At World’s End - $12.1m (13 territories - Wed)
Lord Of The Rings: FOTR - $11.5m (13 territories)
King Kong - $8m (36/4569)

EPIC start!!

Hong Kong

OD - around $350,000

It's OD is slightly inflated due to the July 1 holiday.

$100.2m in 22 markets - not bad, not bad at all...

Wow that is a great number passing 100m is absolutely brilliant. About 280m WW in just 6 days

I'm pretty sure that the $100.2m does not include Monday...

Hmm.. I thought the Foreign estimates included Monday as well since Monday is most of the markets would already be ending...anyways that is another good news cause then about 300m WW in about 6 days.