GOSSIP: Surprise, Surprise! ‘Eclipse’ Did Pretty Well This Weekend…

Eclipse didn’t break more records. It didn’t top New Moon. It didn’t have to.

The $68 million Twilight Saga installment upped its five-day, worldwide haul to an estimated $261.2 million, per the latest numbers.

And, oh, yeah, it won the weekend, too.

Friday-Sunday estimates show Eclipse grossing $69 million, and topping the critic-defying Last Airbender, which finished a respectable second in the box-office standings with an apparently disaster-averting $40.7 million.

• After five days, New Moon stood at $164.7 million domestically, while Eclipse is at $161.7 million.

• The Twilight movies continue to grow on guys. Eclipse‘s opening weekend audience was 35 percent male, up from the 20 percent turn out for New Moon and the 18 percent for the original Twilight.

• Eclipse‘s Friday-Sunday should make it the third-biggest Fourth of July weekend grosser, after Spider-Man 2 and the first Transformers.

• If you saw a movie this weekend, odds are three-in-four that you saw either Eclipse, Last Airbender or Toy Story 3 ($30.2 million; $289 million overall).

Thanks to E! Online for the numbers!