The Phenom Survived,Raising Hell

BOSTON – Undertaker defeated Big Show in his trademark, a Casket Match, at the event that debuted The Phenom’s career – Survivor Series – to deny The World’s Largest Athlete the victory he claimed he would earn at the pay-per-view. (PHOTOS)

Using everything in his arsenal, including a leg drop through the announce table, Undertaker sealed the victory by closing the casket. Big Show did seem to have the match won early, but his reluctance to touch the casket to close the lid gave Undertaker the opening he needed to gain momentum. When Big Show tried to escape the arena, a burst of flames prevented him from doing so, and the Druids brought a second casket to the ramp.

After a short battle of the two imposing forces on the ramp, Undertaker was able to throw Big Show into the casket to earn the win.

What does this win mean for Undertaker, who has been embroiled in a heated rivalry with Big Show since The World’s Largest Athlete attacked The Phenom at Unforgiven? Will Big Show’s loss put him at odds with SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero – keeping him from achieving his goal of becoming WWE Champion?

Edge Returned,Stunned WWE Fans

BOSTON – In front of a capacity crowd in the TD Banknorth Garden, Edge stunned the WWE Universe by returning from Hell to become the new WWE Champion, defeating former champion Triple H and Vladimir Kozlov as a late entrant in the Triple Threat Match.

With Jeff Hardy out of action after being found unconscious in the stairwell of his Boston hotel earlier in the morning (Full story), Kozlov and Triple H battled each other one-on-one. Just when it looked like the champion had Kozlov where he wanted him with a hard-hitting Pedigree, SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero interrupted the match to announce that it would indeed be Triple Threat – with Edge as the third competitor.

The WWE Universe had not seen any sign of life from Edge since Undertaker sent him to Hell at SummerSlam in a Hell in a Cell Match. But on this night, he was full of energy and unleashed on The Game with a vicious spear. Next, Hardy shocked the WWE Universe by running into the ring and attacking Edge. Then, Hardy jumped out of the ring to get a steel chair. He returned, knocking both Triple H and Kozlov to the canvas with angst-ridden chair shots to the head. A fired-up Edge took down Hardy with a spear. After the carnage, the Ultimate Opportunist capitalized, covering Triple H for the win.

Coincidently, the last time Edge won the WWE Championship was in a Triple Threat Match on Raw in July 2006, when he defeated John Cena and Rob Van Dam.

Edge’s victory ended the 12th reign of The King of Kings, who has held the WWE Championship since April.

The stunning course of events leaves the WWE Universe asking some compelling questions.

Exactly what happened to Hardy in his hotel? What will Triple H do to try and regain the gold? And what is the state of the relationship between SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero and her husband, Edge? Finally, how will Kozlov react to not winning the coveted gold he has been seeking?

Things are sure to be very interesting on Friday Night SmackDown.

The Champ Is Here,John Cena’s Return

BOSTON – After months spent recovering from emergency neck surgery, John Cena’s return to the ring was a triumphant one, as he defeated Chris Jericho at Survivor Series to win his first-ever World Heavyweight Championship.

For months, Chris Jericho reigned over Raw as World Heavyweight Champion, repelling challenges from dominant Superstars such as Shawn Michaels, Batista and CM Punk, walking away victorious from matches as varied as a Championship Scramble, Steel Cage Matches and even a brutal Ladder Match. But at Survivor Series, all of the first-ever Undisputed Champion’s trickery and deviousness came to naught as he was confronted with the sheer power and ferocity of a returning John Cena, who slammed Jericho with a thunderous FU before ultimately pinning his opponent for the win.

The entire WWE Universe sat in suspense the night of Survivor Series, eager for John Cena to return, but concerned for his medical condition so soon after going under the knife. Following a match against Batista at SummerSlam, Cena suffered a herniated disc in his neck, necessitating emergency surgery that kept the intense ring warrior sidelined up until now. But when the three-time WWE Champion stormed into the TD Banknorth Garden in his homeground of Boston, the fears of the WWE Universe were immediately alleviated, with Cena displaying the same passion and intensity that has made him a fan-favorite and household name around the world.

With his win at WWE’s second longest-running pay-per-view, new World Heavyweight Champion John Cena has finally saved us from the arrogant posturing and treachery of Chris Jericho, and in the process proved that he is more powerful and focused on victory than ever.

China’s 2nd richest man disappears,Is It Economic Factor?

BEIJING: China’s second richest businessman, Huang Guangyu, has vanished with even it’s own company, Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings Ltd., unable to throw any light on his whereabouts. Initial reports suggested he may have been arrested but there is widespread speculation in the industry that he may have vanished to avoid arrest on charges of corruption.

The company on Monday told the Hong Kong stock exchange

that it has not received any notice or legal documents from any regulatory, governmental or judicial authority in China concerning charges of corruption against Huang, the company chairman.

The company said it was making “necessary enquiries” to try to find out what had happened to its controlling shareholder, who has not been in touch with the firm’s senior officials for several days now. There was no official word on whether he has been arrested. The confusion over his actual condition remained even as the government run Xinhua news agency quoting the “local media” to say that Huang is under police investigation instead of coming with an official version of the event.

He was ranked the second richest man in China by Forbes while Hurun Rich list with personal wealth worth $6.14 billion.

Informed sources said the old Huang, who holds major stakes in several Chinese companies and is a big player in the property market, is hugely influential in political quarters as well.

“Any decision to investigate his affairs must have come from the very top in the Chinese leadership. If he has indeed escaped before he was arrested, it would result in serious loss of face. The police will do whatever is necessary to track him down in that case,” a well informed source told TNN.

The Chinese media reported that Huang was being questioned by police for alleged share price manipulation linked to Shandong Jintai Group Co, a Shanghai listed pharmaceutical company believed to be controlled by his brother, Huang Jinshi. Trading in this company was suspended in Shanghai on Monday.

Huang was earlier questioned in 2006 over allegations of financial irregularities involving the use of a loan to speculate in the property market.

The self-made 39-year old magnet has been a source of inspiration to millions in China. He rose from his humble beginning as the son of a farmer and a school drop-out to establish a chain of more than 800 retail stores under the brand name of Gome. He had started life as a peddler bringing along a bag of radios, batteries and other gadgets from factories in his native Guangdong province to Beijing at the age of 16.

Investigations concerning his businesses include a probe into Eagle Property, which is indirectly owned by Huang, for illegally borrowing $190 million from the Bank of China. The China’s State Administration of Taxation is also investigating Gome to find out if it has hid sales to avoid paying taxes. Gome claimed the probe was a “normal examination” of its value-added tax payments and nothing unusual was uncovered.

OnLine Credit Fraud:$5bn

Security firm Symantec calculated the figure to quantify the scale of fraud it found during a year-long look at the net’s underground economy.

Credit card numbers were the most popular item on sale and made up 31% of all the goods on offer.

Coming in second were bank details which made up 20% of the items being offered on criminal chat channels.

The $5.3bn figure was reached by multiplying the average amount of fraud perpetrated on a stolen card, $350 (£234), by the many millions Symantec observed being offered for sale.

Similarly, the report said, if hi-tech thieves plundered all the bank accounts offered for sale they could net up to $1.7bn.

Closed accounts

Symantec said it was likely that many of the cards offered for sale were invalid or cancelled and bank accounts closed but it added: “These figures are indicative of the value of the underground economy and the potential worth of the market.”

Credit card numbers have proved so popular among hi-tech thieves because they are easy to obtain and use for fraudulent purposes.

Many of the methods favoured by cyber criminals, such as phishing schemes, database attacks and magnetic strip skimmers, are designed to steal credit card information, it said.

The existence of a ready market for any stolen data and the growing use of credit cards also helped maintain their popularity, it said.

“High frequency use and the range of available methods for capturing credit card data would generate more opportunities for theft and compromise and, thus, lead to an increased supply on underground economy servers,” said the report.

The price card thieves can expect for the numbers they offer for sale also varied by the country of origin. US card numbers were the cheapest because they were so ubiquitous – 74% of all cards offered for sale were from the US.

By contrast numbers from cards issued in Europe and the Middle East commanded a premium because they were relatively rare.

Criminal alliances

The year-long look at the underground economy confirmed to Symantec how serious and organised cyber thieves have become.

Via the covert chat channels and invitation-only discussion forums hi-tech thieves form loose alliances, contact those who specialise in one technique or find individuals who can extract cash from particular credit cards or financial institutions.

Russian and Eastern European gangs seem to be among the most well-organised and, said the report, have the ability to mass-produce credit and debit cards. By contrast thieves in the US are much more loosely aligned.

But, it said, all the criminals were happy to work together to steal money from credit cards and bank accounts. This was because card numbers stolen in one country can only be “cashed out” in their home nation – necessitating contact across borders.

“Symantec research indicates that there is a certain amount of collaboration and organisation occurring on these forums, especially at the administrative level,” it said.

“Moreover, considerable evidence exists that organised crime is involved in many cases.”

Citigroup Rescued?U.S. Government

The US Treasury is set to invest $20bn (£13.4bn) in return for preferred shares in Citigroup.

The Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp will also guarantee up to $306bn (£205bn) of risky loans and securities on Citigroup’s books.

The plan follows a $25bn injection of public funds in the bank last month.

Citigroup’s market value fell to $20.5bn on Friday, compared with $270bn in 2006.

Last week the company announced 52,000 job losses worldwide, on top of 23,000 job cuts previously announced. It employs around 12,000 people in the UK.

Citigroup has lost more than $20bn in the past year because of the global financial crisis, suffering four straight quarterly losses.

Citibank UK deposit holders are covered by the Financial Services Authority. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme guarantees up to £50,000 per Citibank account holder, should the bank go bust.

‘Protecting taxpayers’

The action plan was announced after emergency talks over the weekend between the bank and the treasury department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Citigroup is one of the leading US banks and has operations in more than 100 countries.

Many analysts had calculated that the huge financial institution was too big to allow to fail.

“With these transactions, the US government is taking the actions necessary to strengthen the financial system and protect US taxpayers and the US economy,” the three agencies said in a statement.

“We will continue to use all of our resources to preserve the strength of our banking institutions, and promote the process of repair and recovery and to manage risks,” they added.

The cash injection will come from the $700bn financial bail-out fund created last month.

Focus on details

Many analysts believe the plan to rescue Citigroup will help reduce uncertainty in the market.

“We expect the US bail-out of Citigroup as well as Obama’s promise of a major stimulus plan – with key Democrats suggesting numbers between $500bn and $700bn, much bigger than expected – to allow stock markets to gain across the globe, ” said Dariusz Kowalczyk at CFC Seymour in Hong Kong.

Markets are keenly awaiting for more details of the plan to be revealed.

“Clearly, the market focus today will be on the release of a concrete rescue plan for the bank, details of which remain fluid; reports so far have noted that any infusion plan is provisional and subject to change,” said Sue Trinh at RBC Capital Markets in Sydney.

“Does this mean support for other financial institutions will be this big? Does this mean there will be more problems around calculation of so-called toxic assets? It’s too early to say,” said Tony Morriss at ANZ Bank in Sydney.

Management’s future

Under the agreement, Citigroup does not have to replace chief executive Vikram Pandit and other top managers, but the government will be able to make decisions on their compensation.

Mr Pandit, who took the top job at Citigroup in January, has come under fire for failing to turn around the bank.

“You’re seeing an inept management team being rewarded by the US government,” said William Smith at Smith Asset Management in New York.

The bank will not be able to pay out more than 1 cent per share quarterly dividend. The dividend now stands at 16 cent per share.

Seeking to stabilise the financial system, the US government has bailed out Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and American International Group and injected hundreds of billions of dollars into financial institutions.

Tax Is The Way To Prevent:Recession,Gordon Brown

Borrowing billions to cut taxes is the only way to prevent a long lasting recession, Gordon Brown has said.

Unveiling a major shift in Labour’s economic policy, the PM said: “Extraordinary times require extraordinary action.”

The pre-Budget report at 1530 GMT is set to include a cut in VAT from 17.5% to 15% – paid for in part by a new 45% tax rate on earnings over £150,000.

The Tories warn it might not work and will create a future “tax bombshell”.

But Mr Brown said: “To fail to act now would not only be a failure of economic policy but a failure of leadership. Doing too little too late would mean more damage and more deterioration.

“The loss of vital successful businesses. And it would mean a weaker economy, lower growth, eventually greater fiscal problems, and in that event higher interest rates and higher taxes.”

He said the economic “dogma” that had dominated the past 20 years was over as deflation – rather than inflation – was now the biggest threat to the economy.

And he said he did not want to repeat the mistake of previous governments when “failure to take action at the start of the recession has increased both the length and depth of the recession”.

“The best way for taxes to be lower in the long term is for us to ensure that the downturn is as limited in its length and scope as possible,” Mr Brown told the CBI conference in central London.

He said the borrowing needed to fund tax cuts would be paid back through further efficiency savings and sale of government assets.

The scale of the sums the government needs to borrow to fund its planned £15bn to £20bn stimulus package are thought to be unprecedented outside wartime.

And there are concerns it could further hit the value of the pound – the cost of insuring against the British government defaulting on its bonds, a measure of the markets’ confidence in sterling, has crept up and is second only to Italy among the major industrialised nations, the BBC Economics Editor Hugh Pym said.

‘Symbolic significance’

Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to outline a series of immediate tax cuts in the pre-Budget report to boost the economy.

He is expected to cut VAT from 17.5% to 15% – the lowest level allowed under EU law – in a bid to get consumers spending again.

Mr Darling is also expected to outline how that money could be paid back in future years through a combination of slowing growth in government spending and tax increases.

But he will also announce that a new 45% rate on earnings over £150,000 will be brought in if Labour win the next election.

Such a move would mark the end of New Labour’s long-standing pledge not to increase people’s income tax rates.

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the increase in the top rate of tax was of “huge symbolic significance”, but stressed it would only raise a fraction of the sum needed to get the public finances back in order.

Cameron ’sceptical’

The fact that it would only be brought in if Labour won the next election, meant the party would be able to claim it had not broken its 2005 election promise not to increase income tax rates.

It is unclear how much a new tax rate could raise, but a Treasury answer to a Parliamentary question in 2006 suggested a 45% rate on people earning more than £150,000 would have raised £1.2bn.

The prime minister has so far refused to confirm a VAT cut from 17.5% to 15%, but did say there would be “substantial” measures to pump money into the economy.

Conservative leader David Cameron told the CBI conference he was “sceptical” about the government’s stimulus plan, arguing it could hold back further interest rate cuts and warning that temporary tax cuts now would lead to permanent tax rises later.

“They might be talking about tax giveaways but everybody knows that they’re throwing money at us now, to take away at a later date.

“That is the thing about debt, you’ve got to pay it back sooner or later. And to pay back all this money would mean an 8% rise in income tax or a 6% rise in VAT or a corporation tax rate of 71%.”

He said Labour claims the Tories would do nothing were “complete rubbish” adding the party would freeze council tax, allow companies six months to pay their VAT bills, cut the tax rate for small business and introduce tax breaks for job creation. The party would pay for the cuts with a reduction in public spending growth.

Lib Dem treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: “Now that the government has finally realised that the tax system is unfair and hits those on low incomes the hardest, ministers should focus their efforts on closing loop holes and removing tax advantages that the richest currently enjoy.

“The avoidance opportunities and reliefs become even more important if a higher tax rate is introduced.

“By itself an increased tax rate on those earning over £150,000 would only raise negligible amounts of additional revenue.”

Bolt(2008)-Movie Review,Story Line

“Bolt” tells the story of a pampered celebrity — a television action star — who is cast out of his cocoon of fame and privilege and forced to deal with the challenges of the real world. The digitally animated real world, that is, in which the hero, a talking dog voiced by the real-life movie star John Travolta, encounters wise-guy pigeons, a cynical cat (Susie Essman) and a worshipful, geeky hamster named Rhino (Mark Walton).

Since puppyhood, Bolt, in the series that shares his name and the movie’s, has played a genetically altered, fearless supercanine who every week must rescue his owner, a girl named Penny (Miley Cyrus of “Hannah Montana” fame), from the clutches of a dastardly villain (Malcolm McDowell).

Bolt’s performance is effortlessly authentic because he is entirely unaware that it is a performance. Somewhat like Jim Carrey’s Truman in “The Truman Show,” Bolt accepts the reality of his Jerry Bruckheimer-like habitat of chases, explosions and special effects because he has never known anything else. Once outside, he is perplexed to discover that he is, after all, an ordinary dog.

With brisk wit and impressive visual brio, “Bolt,” directed by Byron Howard and Chris Williams from a script by Mr. Williams and Dan Fogelman, explores an existential predicament that it also shares. It is at once a knowing, satirical sendup of the Hollywood fame-and-fantasy machinery and a sleek, expensive product of the Disney-Pixar industrial complex.

While artisanal Pixar touches abound in the exquisitely detailed animation, the story shows some signs of repurposing and committee work. Bolt’s situation is a bit like Buzz Lightyear’s in “Toy Story” — he must learn that what he thinks of as his true identity is an artifact of make-believe — and a lot like Lightning McQueen’s in “Cars.” His circular journey of exile and return, during which he acquires a new self that is a better version of the old one, resembles those of Nemo, Wall-E and quite a few of the Disney princess heroines of old. And, as is Disney custom, Bolt is accompanied, and often upstaged, by a goofy chatterbox sidekick, the ridiculous Rhino, who rarely leaves his plexiglass exercise sphere.

But if “Bolt” — originally conceived by the old regime at the Disney animation studios and refurbished after John Lasseter of Pixar took over — does not quite rise to the level of bona fide Pixar masterpieces like “Wall-E,” “Finding Nemo” and “Ratatouille,” it does manage to be frisky, funny and inventive enough to engage the attention of grown-ups as well as children. Perhaps some of the show-biz jokes will sail over the heads of very young viewers, who won’t understand why Penny’s unctuous agent keeps talking about sticking pins in things (I’m not sure I did), or what that mean lady from the network is so angry about.

But then, such knowing insidery humor is hardly limited to self-conscious HBO shows like “Entourage” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Kids’ stuff like “Hannah Montana” and “iCarly” plays the same trompe l’oeil tricks in a more wholesome context, feeding young viewers the illusion that they can see through the clouds of hype and cynicism that make up more and more of the cultural air they breathe.

What keeps “Bolt” fresh is an unaffected exuberance, a genuine sense of fun, that is expressed above all through obsessive attention to craft. The movie has three sets of talking pigeons, each group embodying a regional stereotype, and while I found the dese-dem-dose New York birds amusing, and their aspiring-screenwriter Los Angeles counterparts downright hilarious, it was the uncanny bobbing and twisting movements of the birds’ heads and the shuffle of their little pigeon feet that raised the conceit from clever to sublime.

Similarly, Bolt is a cute enough little fellow with a winning personality and a nice voice, but his physical gestures and facial expressions turn him into a memorable, irresistible character. The 3-D version of the movie, which will be shown in some theaters, is less devoted to the kind of big effects that throw you back in your seat than to a more thorough and understated expansion of cinematic possibilities.

“Bolt,” in other words, is a real movie — not a great one, perhaps, but a more organic and thought-out piece of work than the usual animated hodgepodge that lures antsy children and their dutiful parents into the multiplexes. It has its sentimental strains, but it doesn’t push them too hard, or resort to the crude, pandering humor of, say, the “Shrek” franchise. Like its hero after he wakes up from his Hollywood dream life, it’s friendly, smart and eager to please. Cat people need not worry — hamster fans will be in heaven, but that’s another story — since there is enough sly, predatory feline humor to keep the thing from going entirely to the dogs.

“Bolt” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Some of the early action sequences, and a climactic scene of danger, may be too intense for small children.

BOLT

Directed by Chris Williams and Byron Howard; written by Dan Fogelman and Mr. Williams; animation supervisor, Doug Bennett; art director, Paul Felix; produced by Clark Spencer; released by Walt Disney Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes.

WITH THE VOICES OF: John Travolta (Bolt), Miley Cyrus (Penny), Susie Essman (Mittens), Mark Walton (Rhino), Malcolm McDowell (Dr. Calico), James Lipton (the Director) and Greg Germann (the Agent).

Stock Market Outlook:Down Under Water

Until a late-day rally on Friday, sparked by word that President-elect Obama would name Timothy Geithner as his new Treasury secretary, last week was another brutal one for the stock market, with the S&P 500 stock index hitting an 11-year low. From trading floors to kitchen tables, people are anxiously asking, “What’s next?” Historically, the markets often rally as one calendar year turns into the next, but could there really be reason to hope for a year-end rally at a time when the only precedents that seem to apply are the worst bear markets on record? “Mid-December to the end of January is known as the only free lunch on Wall Street,” says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor’s Equity Research. “This year,” he says, “could be different.”

What’s ahead for stocks? Trying to predict short-term market moves, of course, is one of the quickest ways to look like an idiot. And yet there are clues to be mined.

Right now, the companies in the S&P 500 are trading at an average price-to-forward-earnings ratio of 8.4. That means investors are willing to pay $8.40 for every dollar analysts expect companies to earn in 2009. Since historically that ratio falls in the mid to high teens, the current market seems cheap by comparison, meaning stocks could be poised to rise.

But, as S&P senior index analyst Howard Silverblatt cautions, “You have to look at those companies and see if they will truly make those earnings.” If the denominator of the equation falls short, then the P/E ratio doesn’t look so hot after all. And there is reason to think projected earnings might be overstated. As of Nov. 21, an ongoing survey of stock analysts by Thomson Reuters projected next year’s earnings growth of S&P 500 companies to be 11.7%. Three weeks earlier, that projection was at 14.5%.

Yet even with more bad news on earnings, stocks worldwide still look cheap, according to an analysis headed by Robert Buckland, a Even assuming corporate profitability falls by 50% all told (so far it’s only down about 10% from last year’s peak), P/E ratios will still be in line with their 40-year average. “There’s a major space for earnings to fall,” says Buckland. “What we’re saying is a lot of that fall is already in the price.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean the market won’t keep falling, getting even cheaper. For the global market, as measured by the MSCI World Index, to hit the valuation it did in the 1981 recession, stock prices would need to fall an additional 40%.

That sort of analysis, however, hardly accounts for all the factors that move the markets. One of the main forces behind the mass sell-offs in October, for instance, was hedge funds being forced to sell their holdings as they deleveraged, scrambling to raise cash to pay investors who wanted their money back. Those sorts of mechanical forces will surely play a role in the market going forward, as well.

The good news about hedge fund selling is that many funds raised substantial cash in the past month, and should be able to meet redemptions with money they already have on hand — at least in the short term. But the mutual fund industry, where fleeing investors don’t have to give 45-day notice as they do at most hedge funds, may be a different story. According to an analysis by TrimTabs Investment Research, in the last bear market, at the time of the bursting of the tech bubble, 4.3% of dollars in U.S. stock funds were withdrawn. So far in this cycle, which is inarguably more severe, only 3.5% of such assets have fled. “To me, this says there’s more mutual fund selling to go,” says TrimTabs president and COO Conrad Gann.

For the market, that could pose a double whammy. As mutual funds have been forced to sell long-held positions to meet redemptions this year, they’ve generated capital gains — which must be passed along to investors. We might therefore also see a round of year-end selling of mutual fund shares by investors looking to offset gains and avoid paying taxes by locking in losses. “Tax-loss selling is a very powerful force,” says Joe Battipaglia, market strategist for the private client group at Stifel Nicolaus. “The market is down 50% from a year ago — those are sizeable losses.”

There are, of course, a host of other issues that might swing the market one way or another, from the fate of Citigroup and the auto industry bailout, to the Federal Reserve’s mid-December meeting, where another cut in interests may be in the offing. Add it all up and the short-term view is — surprise — more uncertainty. “Sometimes we have year-end rallies, and we definitely could use one. We could all use a break from this bear market,” says Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research. “But just because we need it doesn’t mean we’re going to get it.”

Twilight Hits U.S. Box Office,Movie Review

LOS ANGELES — “Twilight” took a giant bite out of the North American box office over the weekend, selling an estimated $70.6 million in tickets and proving that a wholesome love story can still turn out a huge young-adult audience.

The movie, based on the first in Stephenie Meyer’s hugely popular series of vampire romance novels, was expected to deliver strong results for Summit Entertainment. A frenzy among teenage girls marked the picture’s arrival in theaters, with more than 1,000 screenings across the country selling out days in advance. The opening-weekend gross beat even bullish expectations. Box-office analysts had predicted the film would be lucky to reach $60 million because of limited appeal among male moviegoers.

“Twilight” is the story of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), a sullen but sweet high-school student who falls in love with a tender vampire (Robert Pattinson) who is on a no-human-blood diet.

“As we saw the results of the first midnight showings, we figured we had a tiger by the tail,” said Richard Fay, president for domestic distribution for Summit.

In a statement Ms. Meyer said, “I don’t think any other author has had a more positive experience with the makers of her movie adaptation than I have had.”

“Twilight,” directed by Catherine Hardwicke, instantly joined one of the most exclusive clubs in Hollywood: movies that earn a profit within their first three days of domestic release. The film cost $37 million to produce and an estimated $30 million to market. And there is money still left to be counted. International ticket sales look promising — Ms. Meyer’s books have sold 17 million copies worldwide — and expectations for the DVD are huge.

Experts said “Twilight” could struggle with what movie executives call playability, or the ability to maintain box-office heat after the core fan base has moved on. Mr. Fay said he hoped strong word of mouth among mothers would keep ticket sales solid.

Summit, an upstart studio led by the co-chairmen Patrick Wachsberger and Robert G. Friedman, announced plans on Saturday to begin production of “New Moon,” an adaptation of the second of Ms. Meyer’s novels. A Summit spokesman said that it was too early to say when “New Moon” would arrive in theaters.

“Twilight” trampled the competition, most notably “Bolt,” an expensive animated film from the Walt Disney Company. That movie, featuring the voices of John Travolta and Miley Cyrus and overseen by the Pixar co-founder John Lasseter, sold a disappointing $27 million in tickets.

Disney had hoped “Bolt” would signal a clear turnaround at its storied animation department, which has labored mightily in recent years. The company says it still thinks it can eventually put “Bolt” in the win column. “Word of mouth should bode well over the Thanksgiving holiday and beyond,” said Heidi Trotta, a studio spokeswoman.

In second place, behind “Twilight,” at the box office was “Quantum of Solace,” the latest James Bond installment (from MGM and Sony Pictures). It sold $27.4 million in tickets for a new domestic total of $109.5 million. “Bolt” had to settle for third place, with “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” (DreamWorks Animation) in the fourth position with $16 million ($137.4 million). “Role Models” (Universal Pictures) rounded out the Top Five with $7.2 million ($48 million).