A wildly popular vampire love story took a big bite out of the box office, helping deliver a banner weekend for the industry as Hollywood brushed off one of the most tumultuous weeks ever on Wall Street.

“Twilight,” the film that drew legions of fans of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire book series, more than delivered on the advance hype by generating an estimated $70.5 million in North American box-office receipts during its opening weekend. The movie rang up the fourth-highest November opening weekend of all time.That’s an extraordinary result for an independently produced film that cost just $37 million to make and was passed over by Paramount’s MTV Films.

Friday’s box office returns are in, and we can report that the movie “Twilight” staring Kristen Stewart earned a huge $35.7 million on its opening day. That’s the 14th best first-day gross of all time. “Twilight” is currently on track to become the highest-grossing film ever made by a female director, the highest-grossing vampire film of all time.

Go Kristen