'Breaking Dawn' rises to $283.5M worldwide debut

In this image released by Summit Entertainment, Kristen Stewart, foreground, and Robert Pattinson are shown in a scene from "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1." (AP Photo/Summit Entertainment, Andrew Cooper)

In this image released by Summit Entertainment, Kristen Stewart, foreground, and Robert Pattinson are shown in a scene from "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1." (AP Photo/Summit Entertainment, Andrew Cooper)

(AP) ? "The Twilight Saga" has staked out another huge opening with a $139.5 million first weekend domestically and a worldwide launch of $283.5 million.

The domestic total gives "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn ? Part 1" the second-best debut weekend for the franchise, after the $142.8 million launch for 2009's "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." ''Breaking Dawn" did more than half of its business, $72 million, on opening day Friday, while the movie's debut weekend was the fifth-best on record.

Opening in 54 overseas markets, "Breaking Dawn" pulled in $144 million internationally, according to studio estimates Sunday.

But the Warner Bros. dancing penguin sequel "Happy Feet 2" stumbled in its debut, pulling in just $22 million over opening weekend. That's barely half what the first film in the animated franchise earned in its 2006 opening.

The comparison is even worse considering the original did not have the sequel's price advantage for 3-D screenings, which cost a few dollars more than 2-D shows.

The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, Relativity Media's action tale "Immortals," fell to third-place with $12.3 million, raising its domestic haul to $53 million.

George Clooney had a great start with Fox Searchlight's comic drama "The Descendants," which broke into the top-10 despite playing in just a handful of theaters.

"The Descendants" finished at No. 10 with $1.2 million in 29 theaters, averaging a whopping $42,150 a cinema. That compares to an average of $34,351 in 4,061 theaters for "Breaking Dawn."

Directed by Alexander Payne ("Sideways"), the film stars Clooney as a distressed dad tending to his daughters after his wife falls into a coma from a head injury. The film expands to about 400 theaters Wednesday.

In an industry whose main audience is young males, "Twilight" is a rare blockbuster franchise driven by female viewers. Distributor Summit Entertainment reported that women and girls made up 80 percent of the audience for "Breaking Dawn."

The popularity of "Twilight" has left many men scratching their heads, even those involved in releasing the movies.

"I'm 53 years old, and I haven't figured it out yet," said Richie Fay, head of distribution for Summit. "It relates really to young girls and things that are important to them, their romantic ideas of love and relationships, without getting so physical, at least on screen, that it becomes a worry for their parents."

"Breaking Dawn" has brooding teen Bella (Kristen Stewart) marrying vampire lover Edward (Robert Pattinson), whose family strikes an uneasy alliance with jealous werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) to protect the bride and the baby she's carrying.

The movie's big start points to even better business for next year's "Breaking Dawn ? Part 2," the finale in the five-film series based on Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novels.

"Breaking Dawn" was a windfall for Hollywood in general, whose domestic revenues continue to trail 2010's despite rosy projections last spring of a record box-office year.

Domestic business totaled $222 million, up 14 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" led with $125 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

The penguins of "Happy Feet 2" were left in the cold compared with the big debut for the first film, a critical favorite that won the Academy Award for feature animation.

The sequel, featuring returning voice stars Elijah Wood and Robin Williams, received mixed to bad reviews. Still, Warner Bros. reported it earned high marks from audiences, which could keep it afloat in the coming weeks.

"We honestly feel we'll pick up some steam and play some catch-up as we get into the holidays," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner.

But the competition for family audiences turns intense in the next few days with Martin Scorsese's youthful adventure "Hugo," the musical comedy "The Muppets" and the animated holiday tale "Arthur Christmas" all opening Wednesday for the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

The newcomers, combined with "Breaking Dawn," could lift Hollywood above the Thanksgiving record set in 2009, when "New Moon" paced the industry to a $273 million domestic haul from Wednesday to Sunday.

"This could be one of the greatest movie-going weekends ever in the midst of a year that has really had its ups and downs at the box office," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn ? Part 1," $139.5 million ($144 million international)

2. "Happy Feet 2," $22 million.

3. "Immortals," $12.3 million ($11.9 million international).

4. "Jack and Jill," $12 million.

5. "Puss in Boots," $10.7 million ($2.4 million international).

6. "Tower Heist," $7 million ($4.5 million international).

7. "J. Edgar," $5.9 million.

8. "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas," $2.9 million.

9. "In Time," $1.7 million.

10. "The Descendants," $1.2 million.

___

Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:

1. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn ? Part 1," $144 million.

2. "The Adventures of Tintin," $21.7 million.

3. "Immortals," $11.9 million.

4. "Real Steel," $6.9 million.

5. "Moneyball," $5.4 million.

6. "Arthur Christmas," $5 million.

7. "Tower Heist," $4.5 million.

8. "In Time," $4.2 million.

9. "The Lion King," $3.6 million.

10. "Paranormal Activity 3," $3.4 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-20-Box%20Office/id-1681acf6b50c4507b9e6446be7815d0f

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Yvonne Strahovski Joins I, Frankenstein

Yesterday, our own Cole Abaius reported on the possibility of Bill Nighy joining?Stuart Beattie?s I, Frankenstein as a demon, but before we get official word of Nighy going evil, Deadline Manchester reports that?Yvonne Strahovski has signed on to play the female lead and principal love interest in the film. Best known for her work on television series Chuck, the role will continue?Strahovski?s steady slip into more feature work (she recently co-starred in Killer Elite).

Beattie wrote the script?for the modern take on the Frankenstein?s monster tale, working off a graphic novel by Kevin Grevioux.?Aaron Eckhart is on board to play the monster (which any nerd worth their salt knows is not actually named Frankenstein, that name comes from the monster?s creator Dr. Victor Frankenstein, so I am at a bit of a loss when it comes to the name of this project), who wavers between his more hideous needs and a burning desire to be truly human. As if that wasn?t enough to make a monster go positively batty, he?s also being ?pursued by demons wanting to gain the secret of his reanimated corpse.? Also? Those demons want to create an army of the undead. And I thought Mary Shelley?s novel had enough issues to keep the staggering one busy.

Strahvoski?s role is reportedly that of ?a beautiful and gifted scientist? who happens to be working on something near and dear to the monster?s heart (or, um, whoever?s else heart he?s got these days) ? reanimating the dead. Unfortunately, she gets roped into working for those awful demons. This all sounds like it will provide just the right amount of conflict (clinically and emotionally) for the monstrous Eckhart. [THR]

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1923985/news/1923985/

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Astrophile: Supercritical water world does somersaults

Astrophile is our weekly column covering curious cosmic objects, from within the solar system to the furthest reaches of the multiverse

Object type: Extrasolar planet
Composition by mass: 70 per cent rock, 30 per cent supercritical water
Orbital angle: Constantly changing

Imagine that you are floating thousands of kilometres below the surface of a vast ocean that is neither liquid nor gas, but somewhere in between. Above you, the constellations very slowly shift and change as your watery world and its host star turn somersaults in space.

That's what you would see if you could swim on the planet 55?Cancri?e, the most watery world discovered to date. New observations suggest that the planet is probably covered in so-called supercritical waterMovie Camera, a kind of water that blurs the line between liquid and gas.

Not only that, but as the planet and its four planetary siblings orbit their host star, the whole system rotates in space due to tugs from a partner star, as if Saturn and its rings were turning on a spit.

Planet in hot water

55 Cancri, a sun-like star 41 light years from Earth in the constellation Cancer, is one of only a handful of stars that hosts five planets or more. Its innermost planet, 55?Cancri?e, was detected in 2004, given away by the wobbles it induced in its host star.

Those first observations suggested the planet orbited the star once every 2.8 days. But last year, a pair of astronomers realised that gaps in the observations had skewed the statistics. The planet's year was actually only 17 hours, 41 minutes long, meaning the planet's distance from its host star is 1/20th that of Mercury from the sun.

At that distance, the temperature at the planet's surface is a scorching 2700??C. But to astronomers' delight, the short year also means they can watch the planet cross in front of its star, or transit, in less than one Earth day. That makes 55?Cancri?e the first known planet to transit in front of a naked-eye star.

Wettest world

More importantly, watching a transit lets astronomers determine the planet's size, giving a clue to its density and composition.

This spring, two independent groups using the space telescopes MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars) and Spitzer did just that.

Diana Valencia of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues have now combined the results, finding that the planet is 2.17 times as wide as Earth. Combined with its mass of 8.57 Earths, that size suggests the planet has a dense rocky core, surrounded by a 3000-kilometre-thick envelope of nearly pure water.

The team calculates that it is probably 30 per cent water by mass, making 55?Cancri?e the most watery world yet discovered. "It's really the most water-dominated planet, by mass," Valencia says.

It also places 55?Cancri?e in a totally new class of planets, right in the middle of two previously known types. Other planets with similar masses, known as super-Earths, are thought to be either smaller and rockier, or bigger and puffier, like miniature Neptunes.

"We have two families, and 55?Cancri?e is kind of in between," Valencia says. "It is the first one that is right at the edge."

Slick fluid

Because of the extreme temperatures and pressures, the water is probably in the supercritical phase, where gas and liquid are indistinguishable. As easily as the water we are familiar with flows, it is still 10 times as viscous as supercritical water. Other materials can dissolve in supercritical water, so in theory 55?Cancri?e's oceans could be salty.

The density of the supercritical water would vary from the rocky core to the edge of space, with no clear boundary between sea and sky. At a certain distance from the centre there would be a level where humans would be buoyant, Valencia says. Assuming we could breathe and withstand the temperatures, we would float.

The star also has a small companion, a red dwarf star that lies about 1000 times as far away as Earth's distance from the sun. This red dwarf pulls on the 55?Cancri system, and because all five planets in the system ? and their host star ? are such a tight-knit family, they behave like ice skaters holding hands, so that the companion star's tugs cause them all to do somersaults in space.

"The crazy thing is, over the course of hundreds of millions of years, your orientation relative to the other stars in the galaxy would totally change," says Nathan Kaib of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, who led the research team that found the head-over-heels motion. "You'd get flipped upside-down, but it's a very subtle effect. The only thing you're going to notice is that your view of the night sky gets flipped on its head."

That might be bad news for any seafaring creatures living in 55?Cancri?e's supercritical oceans and using the stars to navigate. "You couldn't use them reliably for any trips that took millions of years," Kaib jokes.

Reference: arxiv.org/abs/1110.4783; arxiv.org/abs/1110.5911, to be published in a forthcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters

Read previous Astrophile columns: Attack of the mystery green blobs, Undead stars rise again as supernovae, The sticky star cluster that's mostly black hole, The rebel star that broke the medieval sky, Star exploded? Just another day in Arp 220, Giant star comes with ancient tree rings, Frying pan forms map of dead star's past, The most surreal sunset in the universe, Saturn-lookalike galaxy has a murky past, The impossibly modern star, The diamond as big as a planetMovie Camera.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Black hole birth announcement

ScienceDaily (Nov. 17, 2011) ? Cygnus X-1 is a black hole about 15 times the mass of the Sun in orbit with a massive blue companion star. Astronomers have used several telescopes including Chandra to study Cygnus X-1. The combined data have revealed the spin, mass, and distance of this black hole more precisely than ever before.

Stephen Hawking lost a bet -- originally placed in 1974 -- that Cygnus X-1 did not contain a black hole.

A trio of papers with data from radio, optical and X-ray telescopes, including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, has revealed new details about the birth of this famous black hole that took place millions of years ago. Using X-ray data from Chandra, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, and the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics, scientists were able to determine the spin of Cygnus X-1 with unprecedented accuracy, showing that the black hole is spinning at very close to its maximum rate. Its event horizon -- the point of no return for material falling towards a black hole -- is spinning around more than 800 times a second.

Using optical observations of the companion star and its motion around its unseen companion, the team also made the most precise determination ever for the mass of Cygnus X-1, of 14.8 times the mass of the Sun. It was likely to have been almost this massive at birth, because of lack of time for it to grow appreciably.

The researchers also announced that they have made the most accurate distance estimate yet of Cygnus X-1 using the National Radio Observatory's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). The new distance is about 6,070 light years from Earth. This accurate distance was a crucial ingredient for making the precise mass and spin determinations.

Reid, Orosz, and Lijun Gou, also of CfA, were the lead authors of three papers on Cygnus X-1 published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111117144047.htm

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Sandie Johns, left, newly elected Moffat County School Board president, hugs former president Jo Ann

Sandie Johns, left, newly elected Moffat County School Board president, hugs former president Jo Ann Baxter during an organizational meeting Friday in the district administration building?s board room. Baxter, who is term-limited, served on the board eight years.

Read story

Source: http://www2.craigdailypress.com/photos/2011/nov/19/44913/

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It's Official! Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher Call It Quits

Kuwait's ruler orders 'stricter' security

Dozens of Kuwaitis briefly stormed Kuwait's parliament building as hundreds of others protested outside in Kuwait City late Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. Opposition lawmakers warned Wednesday of a growing political crisis after dozens of anti-government protesters muscled their way into the parliament during debate over efforts to question Prime Minister Sheik Nasser Al Mohammad Al Sabah about corruption allegations. (AP Photo/Nasser Waggi)

Dozens of Kuwaitis briefly stormed Kuwait's parliament building as hundreds of others protested outside in Kuwait City late Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. Opposition lawmakers warned Wednesday of a growing political crisis after dozens of anti-government protesters muscled their way into the parliament during debate over efforts to question Prime Minister Sheik Nasser Al Mohammad Al Sabah about corruption allegations. (AP Photo/Nasser Waggi)

Dozens of Kuwaitis briefly stormed Kuwait's parliament building as hundreds of others protested outside in Kuwait City late Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. Opposition lawmakers warned Wednesday of a growing political crisis after dozens of anti-government protesters muscled their way into the parliament during debate over efforts to question Prime Minister Sheik Nasser Al Mohammad Al Sabah about corruption allegations. (AP Photo/Nasser Waggi)

Dozens of Kuwaitis briefly stormed Kuwait's parliament building as hundreds of others protested outside in Kuwait City late Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. Opposition lawmakers warned Wednesday of a growing political crisis after dozens of anti-government protesters muscled their way into the parliament during debate over efforts to question Prime Minister Sheik Nasser Al Mohammad Al Sabah about corruption allegations. (AP Photo/Nasser Waggi)

Dozens of Kuwaitis briefly stormed Kuwait's parliament building as hundreds of others protested outside in Kuwait City late Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. Opposition lawmakers warned Wednesday of a growing political crisis after dozens of anti-government protesters muscled their way into the parliament during debate over efforts to question Prime Minister Sheik Nasser Al Mohammad Al Sabah about corruption allegations. (AP Photo/Nasser Waggi)

KUWAIT CITY (AP) ? Kuwait's ruler ordered authorities Thursday to tighten security measures in the Gulf nation and conduct possible arrests after parliament was stormed by an anti-government mob angered by high-level corruption allegations.

The steps by the emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, underscore the deepening political tensions in the longtime Western ally, which could host thousands more American forces under a Pentagon-drafted plan to boost troop strength in the Gulf after the U.S. withdraws from Iraq.

The rifts in oil-rich Kuwait began years before the Arab Spring protests, but opposition factions could be further emboldened by the push for reforms around the region. Critics of Kuwait's ruling family claim it turns a blind eye to allegations of widespread corruption and uses security forces to crush dissenting voices.

Dozens of protesters surged over police barricades Wednesday and briefly entered the parliament chamber amid attempts by opposition lawmakers to bring the prime minister for questioning over claims that government officials transferred state funds to accounts outside the country. Kuwait's key affairs are run by the ruling family, but it has one of the region's most politically active parliaments.

Government spokesman Ali Fahad al-Rashid, speaking after an emergency government meeting, quoted the emir as denouncing the parliament protest as threatening the country's "security and stability" and calling for "stricter measures to confront this chaotic behavior."

Al-Rashid said the Interior Ministry and other security forces were ordered to take "all necessary measures to combat any actions that might beset the country's security." The steps could include legal action against the protesters who entered parliament and possible crackdowns on opposition media for "any instigation," according to the official Kuwait News Agency.

The Interior Ministry said five members of the security services were injured during the scuffles in parliament. The ministry did not elaborate, and there was no word on whether protesters were injured or detained.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner praised Kuwait for its "political freedom and cooperation." He said it has "a vibrant civil society and an open press environment. So, we would just ask that any peaceful protests be respected."

Opposition parliament members have sought to question Prime Minister Sheik Nasser Al Mohammad Al Sabah over the money transfer allegations. Last month, Kuwait's foreign minister resigned as the scandal grew.

On Wednesday, pro-government lawmakers managed to vote down a request for the questioning, but opposition groups filed another motion to force another debate later this month.

Kuwait also has been hit by a wave of strikes that grounded the state airline and threatened to disrupt oil shipments.

The tiny Gulf nation has not been hit by major pro-reform demonstrations inspired by Arab uprisings, but Kuwait stands out in the region because of its hardball political atmosphere. Kuwait's parliament has the most powers of any elected body in the Gulf, and opposition lawmakers openly criticize the ruling family.

In January, the emir ordered 1,000 dinar ($3,559) grants and free food coupons for every Kuwaiti. Those handouts have been since dwarfed by other Gulf rulers trying to use their riches to dampen calls for political reform.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pledged about $93 billion for more government sector jobs and services. In September, Qatar announced pay and benefit hikes of 60 percent for public employees and up to 120 percent for some military officers.

Kuwaitis are used to a cradle-to-grave social security system that has increasingly become a burden on the government

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-17-ML-Kuwait/id-f48e4fd5690142afa55a5311b82952a2

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Spare Change, Musical Reminders, and Battery Power [From The Tips Box]

Readers offer their best tips for getting rid of spare change, reminding yourself to do something with a timed playlist, and changing your Windows theme when you go on battery power.

Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.

Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons?maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in?the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments, email it to tips at lifehacker.com, or share it on our tips and expert pages.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/0BwpqBquJFI/

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Squishybots: Soft, bendy and smarter than ever

Editorial: "Darwin trumps self-obsession in robotics"

Read more: Learning machines: The education of an animat

PICTURE what a robot might look like 50 years from now. It's mowing the lawn, or helping you with the housework. Now, what shape is it? What is it made out of? Does it have arms, legs and a head?

Chances are, what you were imagining does not have a squishy body and tentacles - but such a creature would be closer to the real future of robotics. For many tasks that we actually want robots to do, a hard body or humanoid shape just isn't cutting it. So researchers are rethinking the fundamentals of what a smart machine is.

Take the robot being built by Cecilia Laschi and her colleagues in the Italian city of Pisa. At the cost of a cool ?10 million, they are building a soft, rubbery, and

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