The short holiday boxoffice season is always one of the year's most lucrative. The seven-week period, which runs from mid-November through New Year’s weekend, contributes a proportionately high percentage to the annual total. While most of the films released during this holiday season will break even, that's not what their studios had in mind. In the end, there was only one blockbuster plus a few high-profile hits and many disappointments in relation to cost. And several out-and-out flops will wind up in the red at the end of their runs.
This season's biggest boxoffice winner, Summit’s “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1,” cleaned up domestically with a blood-tingling $276.1 million -- more than $100 million ahead of its closest rival at the boxoffice. The fourth film in the romantic vampire franchise based on Stephenie Meyer's global bestsellers and starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart scored even better internationally, taking in an impressive $381 million. That's a worldwide total of a $657.1 million.
Considering that the Bill Condon-helmed “Breaking Dawn” carried a modest production budget of $110 million, “Breaking Dawn Part 1” was by far the most profitable film released during the holiday period. Altogether, the four “Twilight” films have a combined worldwide gross of around $2.46 billion.
