"New Moon" rises to No. 1 at midnight box office

LOS ANGELES – Vampire affair cine "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" raked in $26.3 actor at North American box offices in midnight showings, breaking the almanac set by "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," flat admiral said on Friday.

Box appointment analysts apprehend the broadly advancing "New Moon" to accomplish about $100 actor in its aperture weekend, Friday through Sunday, including screenings from aftermost night at midnight.

The $26.3 actor places the blur at No. 1 on the blueprint of box appointment sales for midnight screenings, said Summit Entertainment, the absolute flat abaft the film.

"This massive fan acknowledgment portends an aperture weekend that could be one of the better of the year and reflects the animation and action surrounding this aftereffect to aftermost year's 'Twilight,'" Paul Dergarabedian, arch of Hollywood.com's box appointment tracking division, said in a statement.

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" fabricated $22.2 actor in midnight screenings back it was appear this accomplished July.

"New Moon" follows the alarming affair amid aerial academy apprentice Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and abiding vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson).

After falling in adulation with anniversary added in "Twilight," which came out absolutely a year ago, Bella and Edward breach up in "New Moon." Bella finds alleviation in her accord with Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), an American Indian who is additionally a werewolf.

Jacob protects Bella from vampires who annihilate humans, but she still longs for the affable blood-sucker Edward who got away.

The "Twilight" blur authorization is based on a alternation of four novels of the aforementioned name by columnist Stephenie Meyer, which her administrator says accept awash 85 actor copies worldwide.

Despite the drove of admirers accepted this weekend, "New Moon" has not won over critics. At analysis armpit RottenTomatoes.com, the blur has accustomed alone a 31 percent favorable rating.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times panned the film, autograph that "sitting through this acquaintance is like active a auto in low accessory through a bad-tempered sea of Brylcreem."

Still, movies aimed at teenagers like "New Moon" are about advised to be allowed from bad reviews because adolescent audiences don't apprehend them, and not all criticism was negative. "If you buy in to the axial romance, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll swoon," wrote British blur annual Empire.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)