LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Opening on 8,000 screens at an opening-record 4, 416 theaters, the third movie based on the best-selling novels set three other movie-going records. "Eclipse" became the top-grosser of midnight screenings with $30 million in movie ticket receipts, beating the previous record of $26.3 million set in November of last year by the last "Twilight" movie, "New Moon." It was also the largest Wednesday gross of all time surpassing "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and the top-grossing summer release ever, surpassing "The Dark Knight" $67.2 million dollars.

In spite of murderous reviews, "The Last Airbender" debuted at second place with $40.7 million. A Paramount live-action film adaptation based on the first season of the hugely successful Nickelodeon animated television series "Avatar: The Last Airbender," the epic adventure fantasy film is being released in 3-D to many markets. "Airbender" is estimated to rake 53.2 million dollars over the weekend since opening Thursday.

Into its third week, "Toy Story 3" is third. The Pixar/ Disney animated blockbuster has grossed $289 million in dollars in domestic sales, and is closing on the 300 million-dollar benchmark.

"Grown Ups," a comedy written and starred by Adam Sandler is in fourth place, and "Knight & Day," an action comedy starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz is in fifth place.
 
The top 10 American movies for the Fourth of July weekend looked something like this:

1. "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
2. "The Last Airbender"
3. "Toy Story 3"
4. "Grown Ups"
5. "Knight and Day"
6. "The Karate Kid"
7. "The A-Team"
8. "Get Him to the Greek"
9. "Shrek Forever After"
10. "Cyrus"