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Summit Entertainment has reported that The Twilight Saga: New Moon has exploded to a $72.4 million opening on Friday, easily besting the $67.2 million take by Warner's The Dark Knight and beating Twilight's entire opening weekend of $69.6 million.

Fueled by the top midnight opening of all time that brought in $26.3 million, New Moon's record Friday puts it on pace to challenge The Dark Knight's all time opening weekend mark of $158.4 million set last summer.

HDR writer Aidan Brack witnessed the New Moon phenomenon first hand Friday night when attending a showing. It took him 45 minutes to park and he ended up grabbing the last two seats in the house. In his words, "They even ran out of popcorn at one point and this was at about 7 in the evening. Insanity!"

Also opening to a strong debut on Friday was The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock which brought in $10.9 million. 2012 raked in $8.1 million in its second Friday while Planet 51 stumbled to a $3.2 million opening day bow.

Complete weekend box office estimates will be available mid-day on Sunday.