In a surprise to no one, the mediocre reviews of Twilight did not dim the ardor of fans on Friday. The movie set a record for a non-sequel opening day, pulling down an estimated $35,700,000. This narrowly beats the opening posted by Iron Man in May of $35,234,361. Although Iron Man also earned an additional $3 million on the Thursday prior to its official opening.

Although the opening is impressive, placing 14th all-time in opening day grosses according to Box Office Mojo, it doesn’t even approach the all-time and 2008 record of $67,165,000 on opening day for The Dark Knight. It did easily dispatch the just over $27 million take hauled in by Quantum of Solace last week.

The film appears destined to hit $100 million this weekend, although it’s unclear what the long term prospects will be. Unlike Iron Man and The Dark Knight, the movie is getting poor reviews and most curiosity seekers will watch it once and not return with friends. But the pic does have a hardcore following who doesn’t care how bad the film is as long as they can see Edward brood and they have nothing to do next week except for going multiple times. This is the demographic that pushed Titanic to the top of the heap after all.

Updated! - There is a reason I don't normally do a box office story and leave such things to the professionals. As our reader below quickly pointed out, Spider-Man still has the highest opening day ever for a non-sequel at $39 million plus. So Twilight has set the record for the highest opening day of a non-sequel in the last four years. Doesn't have quite the same ring, but still pretty damn good.