It's being mentioned in a few of the box office reports showing up online, but we here at Cinematical felt it deserved its own post. In case you haven't noticed, Twilight's $70.5 million amounts to the best opening weekend for a female director ever. Not only did she break Mimi Leder's (Deep Impact) record of $41.1 million, but Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke destroyed it -- bringing her all the way up to the 29th best opening weekend in history (according to Box Office Mojo), slightly beating -- wait for it -- Michael Bay's Transformers by roughly $50 thousand on 600 less screens. I think this proved giant f**king robots are no match for millions of screaming girls.

But this isn't the only record Catherine Hardwicke could break. Our friends over at Over Thinking It pointed out that should Twilight gross more than $187 million domestic, the film will crack the top 100 grossing movies of all time (domestic) list. And if that happens, Hardwicke will become the first female live action American director to crack the holy top 100. I'm sure there's a bunch of other weird little records in there, but I failed math back in the day and I'm probably not the guy you want adding things up.

While this is a great achievement for Hardwicke and women filmmakers, however, there's this quote from a recent study conducted by Dr. Martha Lauzen of San Diego State University (via OTI): "Women accounted for 6% of directors in 2007, a decline of one percentage point since 2006. This figure is almost half the percentage of women directors working in 2000 when women accounted for 11% of all directors." Not good. Hopefully Hardwicke's fantastic opening will help open some eyes ...

Check out our interview with Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke over here.

Twilight' Photos

    EXCLUSIVE: Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen

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    EXCLUSIVE: Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen

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    The cast of 'Twilight'

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    Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen

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    Cam Gigandet as James, Edi Gathegi as Laurent and Rachelle Lefevre as Victoria

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    Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen

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    Nikki Reed as Rosalie Hale

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    Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen and Cam Gigandet as James

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    Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen

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    Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen

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