The teen girls may be a shoo-in, but Bryan Gliserman predicts that the follow-up to Twilight will do more to draw males than the female-focused original.

New Moon, which arrives Friday through E1 Entertainment, ‘has broadened its scope beyond the predominantly female audience, and now appeals to audiences both male and female, young and old,’ says the E1 co-president, noting that U.S. tracking results show the film will draw large numbers of teen males. The decidedly darker sequel sees its heroine (Kristen Stewart) fall into a love triangle with her vampire beau (Robert Pattinson) and a werewolf (Taylor Lautner).

The film is already breaking records. Advance ticket sales topped $1.5 million by Tuesday — a new Canuck record, according to Cineplex — and the picture will bow here on a colossal 685 screens, which Gliserman believes is also a record.

The film opens on a reported 4,000 screens via Summit Entertainment in the U.S., where it is also breaking records for advance ticket sales, outpacing blockbusters such as Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and The Dark Knight. It opens day-and-date in Britain through E1 U.K. (formerly Contender Films).

Gliserman says while the film captures a lot of attention on its own, E1 still invested in a ‘healthy’ advertising campaign to position New Moon as the event picture of the year.

He tells Playback Daily that expectations are higher for New Moon than Twilight, took the grand prize at last month’s OIAF — bows at Toronto’s Bloor Cinema via Mongrel Media. It tells the story of two pen pals whose relationship spans two decades and two continents.