‘New Moon’ grossed an estimated $140.7 million at the domestic box office this weekend, and a worldwide opening total of $258.8 million, marking the third best opening weekend in film history.

Variety says the vampire romance flick, starring Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Rob Pattinson, made $72.7 million on Friday alone, beating out ‘The Dark Knight’ for the best opening day in history. ‘New Moon’ also now boasts the record for most advanced ticket sales, as well as sales for midnight showings, besting ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ on the latter.

‘The Dark Knight,’ which opened in 2008 and features the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, remains the top-grossing weekend opener, with $158.4 million. And ‘Spider-Man 3′ holds still in second place, with $151.1 million in 2007.

‘The Blind Side,’ starring Sandra Bullock took the number 2 slot over the weekend. This was, according to Variety, an astounding overperformance. ‘2012′ was in third place, down from last week’s first, with $26.5 million (and an accumulated $108.2 million) and the animated family pic, ‘Planet 51,’ opened with $12.6 million, coming in at no. 4.

‘New Moon’ grossed nearly double the $69.6 million its predecessor ‘Twilight’ took in over its opening weekend last year.

Reports are that 80% of the ‘New Moon’ audience was female and, of those females, 50% were under 21, proving that one should never underestimate the market power of the teenaged girl

For years, studios have relied on fanboy-driven or family films for big opening grosses (see ‘The Dark Knight,’ ‘Spiderman 3′). But times could be changing.

Richie Fay of ‘New Moon’ production house, Summit Entertainment, said, “This blew away a lot of preconceived notions about who you should play to, and how you get to a certain group.”