The smoke from the fireworks has finally settled and this past Fourh of July weekend was an explosive one at the box office.  Twilight: Eclipse proved a huge success but made $3.6 million less than Twilight: New Moon released this past November 2009.  All told, Eclipse grossed $176.3 million from Wednesday through Monday as July 5th was considered a National holiday.  This tally makes Eclipse the most successful six day opening of 2010.  According to reports, Eclipse had a budget of $68 million, not counting prints and advertising.  Industry insiders will be watching in the coming days to see if Eclipse can maintain the momentum.  Since kids are out of school and summer is in full swing, weekday grosses are expected to be substantial.  The other big piece of news is that Twilight might have broken through and reached a larger audience.  According to tracking, 65% of the audience for Eclipse was female compared to the 80% female audience for New Moon.  Eclipse is also far and away the best reviewed film in the franchise, which may have finally peaked the interest of the male demographic.   New Moon dropped 70% in the second week of release, but Eclipse might stand a better chance for box office longevity. 

The Last Airbender opened to negative buzz and horrible reviews, but managed to overcome it to a surprising gross of $69.3 million for the first five days.  The film reportedly cost in the neighborhood of $150 million, so execus at Paramount must be feeling relief.  The film was apparently review proof and also served as counter programming to Twilight.  The Last Airbender still has a long way to go to achieve box office success though and the overseas market will be crucial. 

Meanwhile Fox Searchlight's comedy Cyrus expanded from 60 to 77 theatres and landed in the top ten with a gross of $1 million for the four day weekend.  Buzz on the film is building and it could continue to expand further in the coming weeks.  Searchlight has a proven track record of marketing quirky indies to mainstream success.

Holdovers Toy Story 3, Grown Ups, Knight and Day and The Karate Kid all fell about 50% at the box office.

This coming weekend the animated film Despicable Me will open along with the re-boot of Predators.  Each film is vying for a vastly different audience, but both are expected to do respectable business.