According to Hit Fix New Moon brought in over $14 million dollars on Wednesday.

“”The Twilight Saga: New Moon” go?  After making another $14.3 million on Wednesday for a new U.S. total of $179 million, the question isn’t whether it will hit the $250 million mark it’s whether it can hit $300 million.  Considering the first “Twilight” made only $192 million a year ago that would be a stunning achievement.”

According to Gossip Cop the Thursday total is $9 million

That would but New Moon’s total domestic earning at approximately $188.4 million dollars. Twilight earned $192.7 million in it’s teatrical run that lasted from November 21, 208-April 2, 2009. In other words, what it took Twilight a little over four months to earn, New moon will earn in a week. Without question New Moon will pull in at least 4 million this Friday which will have it jump the Twilight total. In fact it will probably surpass the coveted $200 million mark by the end of the weekend.

All of this will have New Moon land in the number 6 position right behind Star Trek starting next week. Where it goes from there is anyone’s guess.

EW is celebrating the success with this article

“The ascendance of the Twilight saga represents an essential paradigm shift in youth-gender control of the pop marketplace. For the better part of two decades, teenage boys, and overgrown teenage boys, have essentially held sway over Hollywood, dictating, to a gargantuan degree, the varieties of movies that get made. Explosive truck-smashing action and grisly machete-wielding horror, inflated superhero fantasy and knockabout road-trip comedy: It has been, at heart, a boys’ pig-out, a playpen of testosterone at the megaplex. Sure, we have “chick flicks,” but that (demeaning) term implies that they’re an exception, a side course in the great popcorn smorgasboard.

No more. With New Moon, the Twilight series is now officially as sweeping a juggernaut on the big screen as it ever was between book covers. And that gives the core audience it represents — teenage girls — a new power and prevalence. Inevitably, such evolutions in clout are accompanied by a resentful counter-reaction. For if power is gained, then somewhere else (hello, young men!) it must be lost. ..The key to New Moon’s appeal, of course, is that a lack of consummation is built into the movie’s very premise, and so the sexiness, as it was in the ’50s, has to emerge almost entirely from the atmosphere, and from the interplay of those faces. And that, more than anything, is what makes this a picture dominated, in spirit, by a new kind of girl power. Mock me all you want (and from the haters, I expect nothing less), but the reason I believe that the big-screen success of the Twilight saga bodes well for the future of Hollywood movies is that the teenage girls who are lining up to see New Moon are asserting, in an almost innocent way, their allegiance to a much older form of pop moviemaking: the narcotic potency of mood, story, and romantic suggestion over the constant visual wham-pow! of action, effects, and packaged sensation. It’s not that New Moon has none of that stuff. It’s that the movie uses fantasy to liberate, rather than to steamroll, its emotions. That’s what makes it a new-style, feminine-driven brand of popcorn, one that’s more than welcome at a moment when the other kind — the boys’ kind — has grown more than a bit stale.”

According to Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood (at 10:30 pacific time Saturday night):

“SATURDAY 10:20 PM UPDATE: Hollywood insiders tell me that, based on NEW MOON’s early Saturday numbers, the phenomenally performing pic opened with a gargantuan $140 million first weekend.

The Twilight Saga franchise moviemaker Summit Entertainment won’t report official North American, international and worldwide totals until Sunday. But the sequel’s vampires and werewolves shattered the All-Time 3rd Biggest Opening Weekend record of $135.6M (see below).”

Now what does that mean? Hands down the best number analysis that fans can understand right now is coming from Larry over at ProNetworks (3:00 am Eastern Time Sunday):

“For those who are new to the box office numbers game, it may seem odd to have these figures this early in the weekend. But it is standard procedure to have early Saturday totals come in late Saturday night. Most theater chains have already filed their reports at that point and many studios have access to them and unofficially release the information. Once those figures arrive they always estimate Sunday and come up with a weekend projection. Then, several hours later on Sunday, the official numbers are issued for Saturday. At that point they predict Sunday numbers again and come up with a revised weekend projection. This is always done on Sunday. Of course, Sunday and weekend figures can only be estimates at this point. The actual Sunday numbers aren’t known until Monday. But many years and literally thousands of projections have yielded formulas that allow the industry to predict fairly closely what Sunday will be based on Friday and Saturday’s numbers and, therefore, what the weekend will look like. The actual numbers that come in on Monday are usually not too far off from the estimates made on Sunday. They usually adjust slightly up or down but are rarely far off.

No matter what the totals turn out to be, this is already the widest opening of all time for an independent film and guaranteed to be the biggest ever box office opening for an indie. The top four places are held by major Hollywood studio films: The Dark Knight (Warner Bros.) at $158.4M, Spider-Man 3 (Sony/Columbia) at $151.1M, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Disney/Buena Vista) at $135.6M, and Shrek the Third (Paramount/Dreamworks) at $121.6M. “

Follow Larry on Twitter here.

If you didn’t see the movie yet, click on the comments at your own peril. Unsurprisingly, critics don’t like it. The one issue we thought was rather funny that many of them brought up is that they thought it was poorly paced whereas it’s not a flaw that we see, though there are others (Alice’s vision, anyone?).

Also of note, is that many of the critics are guys. Is it a Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus thing? Meaning that women want that slower pace to feel Bella’s pain whereas guys don’t?  We’re not saying the film doesn’t have flaws, but is this just the case of the guys not getting what women want?

Here’s some of what we Tweeted on the issue last night:

“Side note, critics who don’t like it r all male. Not saying any1 in danger of an Oscar, but I find Transformers just as boring.

What they are seeing as slow (IMO) works as the depression Bella goes through. Thinking the fanbase not gonna have an issue

Press has never “gotten Twilight”. I could explain it, but they are so set in their cubbyhole visions they don’t want to see why it succeeds

It’s a woman’s POV film that resonates & they don’t know what the hell to make of it b/c they can’t get out of their own way fast enough.

Let me break it down: It’s the plot, stupid. It’s not that we don’t see the flaws, we love it despite the flaws! And that ticks the guys off

In 2008: Iron Man, Indiana Jones 4, Hancock are far from quality but did well. Why? They resonated w/guys. Why is what girls want a mystery

It’s going to be a top 10. Fans are happy, drive the box $, & love it. How do ya like them apples?. Oh yeah…One more thing..Bite me!”

Where do you stand?