Meanwhile, the film just missed becoming the all-time No. 1 opening for a vampire movie.

ALL-TIME TOP 10 OPENINGS FOR A VAMPIRE MOVIE
1. I Am Legend — $77.2 million opening, $256.3 million cume
2. Twilight — $70.55 million (Projected)
3. Van Helsing — $51.7 million cume, $120.1 million opening
4. Interview with the Vampire — $36.3 million opening, $105.2 million cume
5. Blade II — $32.5 million opening, $82.3 million cume
6. Bram Stoker’s Dracula — $30.5 million opening million $82.5 million cume
7. Underworld: Evolution — $26.8 million opening, $62.3 million cume
8. Underworld — $21.7 million opening, $51.9 million cume
9. Blade — $17 million opening, $70 million cume
10. Blade: Trinity — $16 million opening, $52.4 million cume

For Meyer, a Latter-day Saint housewife who lives in Phoenix, this triumph makes her America's answer to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. She has never seen an R-rated movie or had a drop of alcohol (although she told Time magazine that she occasional has a little caffeine when she sneaks a Cherry Coke), and Twilight preaches the romance of abstinence. Parents mortified by the casual sex and loose morality of TV hits like Gossip Girl and MTV's The Hills are likely to be thrilled by this celebration of chastity.

Summit has made official the well-promoted secret that sequels are on the way. The next two books in the series — 2006's New Moon (2006) and last year's Eclipse — will be shot back-to-back with director Catherine Hardwicke and stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson returning. (The company has also optioned the fourth book, Breaking Dawn, published earlier this year.)

Hardwicke, who made a critical splash with 2003's thirteen ($4.6 million domestic), now has the biggest opening ever for a movie directed by a woman. Twilight represents a major rebound for her after a pair of disappointments: the addictively bad Lords of Dogtown ($11.2 million domestic), adapted from the excellent Stacey Peralta documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys; and a commercially disappointing 2006 birth-of-Christ drama The Nativity Story ($37.6 million domestic).

Stewart, who started her career playing Jodie Foster's tomboy daughter in 2002's Panic Room ($96.3 million domestic), could be on her way to becoming a full-fledged movie star. Prior to her role as Bella Swan, she had a heartfelt supporting turn in Sean Penn's Into the Wild ($18.3 million domestic) and contributed another solid supporting performance to current arthouse hit What Just Happened? (Magnolia) from Oscar winning director Barry Levinson (about $1 million domestic so far). Pattinson is the biggest winner from Twilight and its upcoming sequels. His only role of note has been Cedric Diggory in two Harry Potter films (Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix), but now he is likely to be one of the hottest teen idols in the world.

My hunch is that this vampire yarn will not have very long legs. Exit surveys do not show that Twilight's appeal has expanded much beyond the Females Under 25 quadrant. I am anticipating a Wednesday-thru-Sunday Thanksgiving weekend gross of about $36 million for a 10-day cume of about $114 million. After that, however, I expect that this movie will "run out of ticket buyers" at a faster-than-normal pace, though it should still finish at about $140 million domestic.

Speaking of running out of ticket buyers, No. 2 for the weekend is James Bond film Quantum of Solace (Sony), which landed with a bit of a thud, dropping 60 percent from opening weekend. Daniel Craig's second Bond outing managed just $27.4 million, giving it a new 10-day cume of $109.4 million. Solace is still ahead of the pace of 2006's Casino Royale, which had banked $94 million at the same point in its run.

Overseas, Bond added another $40.6 million over the weekend, debuting in both Australia and Spain. The worldwide total to-date is $418 million, and the picture could ultimately reach $675 million, which would represent a 12 percent improvement on Casino Royale.

Bolt, from Walt Disney Studios, was the other new wide release this weekend, and it's off to a sluggish start. Despite about 900 engagements in Disney Digital 3D, the presence of Pixar guru John Lasseter as executive producer, and the voices of John Travolta and Hannah Montana herself (Miley Cyrus), the movie started slow. Its aggressive marketing across all of the Disney platforms, including Radio Disney and The Disney Channel, couldn't keep Bolt from barking up a meager $27 million, well below industry expectations.

Disney has had great success with its Pixar titles in the past decade, but the company's own animation studio have not had a breakout blockbuster since 1999's Tarzan. Bolt will not be a return to that level of success, but it is poised to perform very well over the Thanksgiving holiday period. Next Friday-thru-Sunday, it will likely match its opening weekend gross, and for five days, Wednesday-thru-Sunday, it should ring up about $36 million in domestic sales. That would mean that, by the Monday after Thanksgiving, it will have banked a more-than-respectable $67.5 million. Still, this picture will probably top out with $110 million-$115 million domestic.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks/Paramount) is proving to be less durable than expected, down about 54 percent this weekend to an estimated $16 million and a new cume of $137.4 million. Two weeks ago, I fully expected M:E2A to be the all-time biggest non-Shrek film from DreamWorks Animation, but I now think it will fall short of Kung Fu Panda's $215.4 million domestic. A total take of $195 million-$200 million now seems more likely.

The very funny Role Models (Univeral) continues to surprise, adding another $7.2 million for a fifth-place finish. A new domestic cume of $48 million guarantees that we will see more from the twisted comic mind of David Wain.

Also showing up in the Top 10 this weekend was The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Miramax), checking in at No. 9 with $1.67 million on just 406 screens, representing a $4,121 Per Theatre Average. Reviews are generally positive (64 percent Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), and writer/director Mark Herman's adaptation of the John Boyne novel proves that we may never run out of compelling stories about the Holocaust.

STUDIO 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW Twilight (Summit) — $70.55 million, $20,646 PTA, $70.58 million cume
2. Quantum of Solace (Sony) — $27.4 million, $7,924 PTA, $109.4 million cume
3. NEW Bolt (Disney) — $27 million, $7,395 PTA, $27 million cume
4. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (DreamWorks/Paramount) — $16 million, $3,993 PTA, $137.4 million cume
5. Role Models (Universal) — $7.22 million, $2,645 PTA, $48 million cume
6. Changeling (Univeral) — $2.64 million, $1,520 PTA, $31.6 million cume
7. High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney) — $2 million, $850 PTA, $86.8 million cume
8. Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Weinstein) — $1.7 million, $1,393 PTA, $29.3 million cume
9. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Miramax) — $1.67 million, $4,121 PTA, $2.6 million cume
10 The Secret Life of Bees (Fox Searchlight) — $1.27 million, $1,164 PTA, $35.6 million cume
11. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) — $994,000, $31,063 PTA, $1.6M
12. Soul Men (MGM) — $930,000, $1,143 PTA, $10.9 million cume

FRIDAY 9:30 p.m. (Pacific): Vampire Edward Cullen and nice girl Bella Swan, the leading characters in the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, may be icons of abstinence and chastity, but the novel's hardcore fans are not abstaining from the box office, and their fervor for the Summit release is anything but chaste. After a reported $7.5 million in Thursday-Friday overnight screenings, throngs of girls have packed multiplexes all day long, and the Catherine Hardwicke-directed movie has generated another $25.5 million since sunrise for a spectacular $33 million opening day.

The question now is how Twilight will perform the rest of the weekend, and in its total domestic run. The smart money says that the three-day will follow the pattern demonstrated by Sex and the City, which would mean about $22.1 million on  Saturday (down about 33 percent Friday-to-Saturday), followed by a 30 percent Saturday-to-Sunday slide to a possible $15.4 million. That would bring the weekend haul to an impressive $70.58 million.

If those numbers hold, and there is room for error because this is some uncharted territory (there has never been anything quite like Twilight), then the multiple (the number that you multiply the opening weekend by to reach the total domestic gross) could be as low as 2.25, which would be about the same as High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney). My sense is that this movie is very, very niche, and the multiple could be even less than HSM3, which has benefited from big family audience business. I am guessing that Summit’s biggest movie ever will finish in the $145 million-$150 million range.

This is all fantastic news for Summit. As a production company, they have produced many successful films, including Evita ($50 million cume), American Pie ($102.5 million cume), Mr. and Mrs. Smith ($186.3 million cume), Step Up ($65.3 million cume), Step Up 2: The Streets ($58 million cume), and the current arthouse hit Happy-Go-Lucky ($1.8 million cume so far), which will likely earn Sally Hawkins a Best Actress Oscar nomination. The saga of Edward and Bella, however, is only the sixth movie that they have distributed themselves. The previous five — P2 ($4 million cume), Penelope ($10 million), Never Back Down ($24.8 million), Fly Me to the Moon ($12.2 million) and Sex Drive ($8.3 million) — combined to gross $59.3 million domestic, less than Twilight's opening weekend.

Chalk up the success of Twilight as one for the crowd that says, "There's too much sex and violence in Hollywood movies." The author Meyer, a Latter-day Saint who has never tried alcohol or seen an R-rated movie, is the biggest star in the industry this weekend. Twilight is about vampires, but the books, and now the blockbuster movie, are about old-fashioned romance and chivalry. Edward and Bella are the morally sound antidote to TV shows like Gossip Girl and the new version of Beverly Hills 90210. Can a movie make abstinence the cool thing to do? All those high school and college guys who are getting dragged to see this one on their Friday and Saturday dates are likely to put the theory to the test.

The other major wide release this weekend is Bolt from Walt Disney Animation Studios, but, after Beverly Hills Chihuahua, audiences may have had their fill of talking dogs. Despite almost 900 engagements in Disney Digital 3D, Bolt managed only about $7.1 million on opening day, edged by Quantum of Solace (Sony), which grabbed $8.7 million on its second Friday. I still anticipate a No. 2 finish for the well-reviewed animated movie with a possible $27.69 million, but the number is well below expectations.

Bolt is not from Pixar, but the executive producer is Oscar winner John Lasseter, who wrote and directed Pixar mega-hits Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life and Cars. The most recent glory days for Disney Animation started in 1989 with the now-classic The Little Mermaid ($111.5 million domestic) and peaked with 1994's The Lion King ($328.5 million domestic). The era also included excellent movies like Beauty and the Beast ($171.3 million domestic), Aladdin ($217.3 million domestic), Pocahontas ($141.5 million domestic) and Mulan ($120.6 million domestic). The company seemed to come off the rails right after 1999's Tarzan, which scored a huge $171 million U.S. gross.

This was Disney trying to capture some of that Pixar magic for its own animation brand. Since 2000, Walt Disney Animation Studios has released 15 films with an average opening weekend of only $12.3 million and an average domestic gross of just $73.3 million, so Bolt is way above the company's recent batting average. But it is still not the monstrous blockbuster they badly want.

I am projecting $26.97 million for the rebooted James Bond movie Quantum of Solace (Sony), pushing its 10-day domestic cume to $109 million. DreamWorks/Paramount and their sturdy Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa will manage another solid weekend. M:E2A rounded up $3.75 million on Friday, and it should reach $16.68 million for the three-day, with a new cume of $138.1 million. The equally durable David Wain comedy Role Models (Universal) will round out the Top 5 for the weekend. The picture added another $2.4 million on Friday, and that could translate to $7.44 million by Monday morning.

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY FRIDAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW Twilight (Summit) — $33 million*, $9,652 PTA, $33 million cume
2. Quantum of Solace (Sony) — $8.7 million, $2,516 PTA, $90.7 million cume
2. NEW Bolt (Disney) — $7.1 million, $1,945 PTA, $7.1 million cume
4. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (DreamWorks/Paramount) — $3.75 million, $936 PTA, $125.1 million cume
5. Role Models (Universal) — $2.4 million, $883 PTA, $43.2 million cume
6. Changeling (Univeral) — $875,000, $506 PTA, $29.8 million cume
7. High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney) — $800,000, $339 PTA, $85.6 million cume
8. Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Weinstein) — $685,000, $561 PTA, $28.3 million cume
9. The Secret Life of Bees (Fox Searchlight) — $500,000, $457 PTA, $34.8 million cume
10. Soul Men (MGM) — $370,000, $455 PTA, $10.3 million cume
* Includes $7.5 million from Thursday midnight screenings

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW Twilight (Summit) — $70.58 million, $20,646 PTA, $70.58 million cume
2. NEW Bolt (Disney) — $27.69 million, $11,109 PTA, $27.69 million cume
3. Quantum of Solace (Sony) — $26.97 million, $7,799 PTA, $109 million cume
4. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (DreamWorks/Paramount) — $16.68 million, $4,165 PTA, $138.1 million cume
5. Role Models (Universal) — $7.44 million, $2,738 PTA, $48.2 million cume
6. High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney) — $3.4 million, $1,440 PTA, $88.2 million cume
7. Changeling (Univeral) — $3.01 million, $1,747 PTA, $31.9 million cume
8. Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Weinstein) — $2.08 million, $1,713 PTA, $29.7 million cume
9. The Secret Life of Bees (Fox Searchlight) — $1.77 million, $1,621 PTA, $36.1 million cume
10. Soul Men (MGM) — $1.25 million, $1,545 PTA, $11.2 million cume