‘New Moon’ sets midnight showing record

(CNN) — The sec­ond install­ment in the “Twi­light” saga, star­ring Robert Pat­tin­son as vam­pire Edward Cullen, Kris­ten Stew­art as his star-crossed love and Tay­lor Laut­ner as the wolf­boy who loves her, has already ripped through a box office record.

Accord­ing to Hol­ly­wood trade mag­a­zine Vari­ety, “New Moon” is the biggest mid­night show­ing in his­tory, gross­ing $26.3 mil­lion when it opened in 3,514 the­aters at 12:01 a.m. Friday.

The film even sur­passed the super­nat­ural cin­ema force that is “Harry Pot­ter,” col­lect­ing more than the $22.2 mil­lion that “Harry Pot­ter and the Half Blood Prince” earned dur­ing its mid­night show­ing this summer.

“New Moon” has also eas­ily beaten its own pre­de­ces­sor, “Twi­light,” which earned $36 mil­lion on open­ing day last year. And while “Twilight’s” open­ing week­end was $69.7 mil­lion, early reports are that “New Moon” will do even better.

But along with the ticket sales bounty is backlash.

The Vat­i­can released an announce­ment Fri­day denounc­ing the film, which is based on Stephe­nie Meyer’s block­buster series.

“This film is noth­ing more than a moral vac­uum with a deviant mes­sage and as such should be of con­cern,” warns the Vatican’s cul­ture coun­cil leader, Mon­signor Franco Per­az­zolo, in a state­ment timed to the release of “New Moon,” accord­ing to E! Online.

“This theme of vam­pires in ‘Twi­light’ com­bines a mix­ture of excesses,” he con­tin­ued, “that, as ever, is aimed at young peo­ple and gives a heavy eso­teric element.”

Yet the kids these days appear to dig the “excesses” of “Twi­light.” Still, only time will tell if “New Moon” will also out­sell the cur­rent “best open­ing day” title­holder, “The Dark Knight,” which grossed $67.2 mil­lion when it opened July 18, 2008.

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