Breaking Dawn May Give You a Seizure

The final birth scene in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 is reportedly triggering seizures in some audience members.

A California man, Brandon Gephart, was reportedly rushed to the hospital after getting sick while watching Breaking Dawn‘s birth scene. The screening ended when paramedics arrived to help Gephart.

“He was convulsing, snorting, trying to breathe,” Gephart’s girlfriend Kelly Bauman told CBS Sacramento. “He scared me big time.”

A Salt Lake City man also suffered a similar seizure while watching Breaking Dawn, ABC4 reports.

“I didn’t really remember what happened after that,” he said. “I think I blacked out. According to [my wife] I was shaking and mumbling different noises.”

His wife explained further: “I was kneeling in front of him and slapping his face.” The man’s name was not given because he was afraid he would lose his job.

The birth scene features red, white and black images, which medical experts say may trigger episodes of photosensitive epilepsy.

“It’s like a light going off because it hits your brain all at once,” Dr. Michael G. Chez tells CBS Sacramento. “The trouble with theaters is that they’re so dark, the light flashing in there is more like a strobe light.”

Breaking Dawn Early Overseas Numbers Are Big

Domestically The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn is anticipated to have a massive opening considering the number pre-soldout theaters for midnight screenings still rolling out across the time zones. Internationally its already doing very well in its first markets with early screenings topping $8.9 million in select territories. (Note: All figures are in US dollars)

The film opened at number 1 in France with $3.83 million. Its the third highest opening for the year, behind “Harry Potter” and “Tintin”, and well ahead of “Transformers 3”, “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Planet of the Apes”.

In Australia midnight screenings alone drew an amazing $1.27 million.

Breaking Dawn also landed at number one in Italy with a box office of $2.3 million.   Not all Italian regional locations had reported figures, with at least 30 screens unaccounted for as of this report.

In Belgium Breaking Dawn accounted for a staggering 63.78% of all Wednesday film business earning $786,595. The movie pushed the highly popular “Tintin 3D” out of the top spot.

Sweden posted a similar strong opening day, with a box office of $757K.

The studio (Summit) is predicating a $110-120 million opening in the US, which would place it well behind the $142.8 million raked in by 2009’s “New Moon” installment. The social media “buzz tracking” site Fizziolo.gy has estimated the film could bring in closer to $140 million based on the volume of chatter related to it on the eve of its release.

Despicable Me Wins Box Office Race

Despicable Me opened with a $56.4 million haul on around 5,200 screens this weekend. That’s a strong showing for the animated tale, and good news for Universal which hasn’t had a hit yet this year. Approximately 45 percent of the movie’s earnings came from 3-D showings, which was substantially lower than any of the other 3D animated releases this year.

In its second weekend, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse fell 51 percent to $31.7 million, bringing its 12 day total to #235.4 million. The Eclipse second weekend drop was better than Twilight, which fell 62%, and New Moon, which dropped a whopping 70%.

The R-Rated Predators opened to a respectable $24.8 million on around 3,300 screens. This is the second highest-grossing start for the franchise behind Alien Vs. Predator, though the addition of the Alien brand surely aided in that movie’s grosses.  This is the best opening for a Robert Rodriguez-produced movie since Spy Kids 3D: Game Over in 2003.  Although Predators performed well, it was the third  sub-$30 million start for a 20th Century Fox action movie this summer (The A-Team and Knight & Day).

Toy Story 3 continued it impressive run with its smallest weekend-to-weekend decline yet of 31 percent. The film added $21 million to its take, bringing its total to $340 million in 24 days. This total makes it Pixar’s highest grossing movie ever (over Finding Nemo), and it has now passed Alice in Wonderland to become the top domestic grossing movie of 2010. 

Brutal reviews may have taken their toll on The Last Airbender, which fell 59 percent to $16.6 million for a fifth place finish and a $99.7 million total. It’s expected to cross the $100 million mark today to become the fourth M. Night Shyamalan movie to do so.

Source: Boxofficemojo

Twilight Eclipse Dominates Weekend

As widely expected, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse easily topped the July 4th weekend box office with $162 million over its first 5 days in release. This is less than the studio’s forecast of $173 million and slightly behind the $165 million earned by The Twilight Saga: New Moon in the same number of days. With another $100 million from 42 other countries the film has already piled up $262 million against its relatively modest production budget of $68 million, making it hugely profitable for Summit Entertainment in less than a week of release.

Eclipse has earned somewhat uneven but generally not stellar reviews from critics, garnering only a 50% “fresh” rating from Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing. It does slightly better with “top critics” at 63%, and with viewers at 70%.

Those ratings crush those of other big release of the weekend, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, which has been heavily panned by critics and is RT tracking at only 8%. Despite that critical beat down Airbender managed to earn $40.6 million over the weekend for a 2nd place finish. With its early Thursday sales included the total climbs to $53.2 million in its first four days of release. That exceeds Viacom’s target of a $50 million opening.

Twilight Eclipse Sets Records

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse juggernaut is off to a great start with several records for its opening. Its 12:01am showings set a new record of $30 million on a record number of screens. Now after its first day in theaters it has set a new record for all-time best Wednesday opening with $68.5 million besting Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’s $62 million last summer.

The New Moon installment, which premiered on a Friday, still holds the best first day record with $72.7 million. Eclipse’s Wednesday is good enough for second place, with The Dark Knight in third with $67.2 million.

With production costs (not including promotion) tagged at $68 million Summit Entertainment has basically broke even on the film in a single day.

AMC and Cinemark offer Twilight Marathons

Some AMC theaters will offer fans a three movie Twilight package on June 29th. Select theaters will offer a ticket to see all three films beginning at 6:30 p.m., with Twilight: Eclipse at 12:01 a.m June 30th, according to Slice of SciFi. The package runs $30 and includes a $10 AMC concessions voucher.

Theater chain Cinemark is also offering a similar 3 movie deal for $20, but you don’t get a voucher for popcorn.