Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson Top Our List Of Hollywood’s Highest-Grossing Romantic Couples

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, when movie lovers’ thoughts turn to romance films. Older folks might think of putting on Casablanca; Gen X’ers, Say Anything. What does it say about the millennial generation that the most popular love story of their time involves a young lady, a vampire and a werewolf?

That’s why Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson land at the top of our list of Hollywood’s Highest-Grossing Romantic Couples. We looked at the top-grossing romantic movies of the last three years. Twilight was by far the biggest box office winner over that period, earning $1.17 billion.

The fact that we get to track the couple’s off-screen romance along with their on-screen love just adds to the overall romance of the films. The couple is reportedly back together after breaking up over Stewart’s fling with the married director of her film Snow White and the Huntsman.

Pattinson is also a member of the 10th place couple on our list alongside Reese Witherspoon. Their film Water for Elephants earned $59 million in the U.S. in 2011. Those aren’t Twilight numbers, but considering that the movie brought in an extra $58 million internationally and only cost $38 million to make, it was a small hit.

To compile our list, we looked at the top-grossing romantic movies as classified by Box Office Mojo over the past three years and added up each couple’s total U.S.box office. While StewPatz have an advantage because they appeared in three high-grossing movies together during our time frame, there were other actors who also did well.

Like Channing Tatum, who ranks twice on our list. Tatum and Rachel McAdams place second thanks to last year’s hit The Vow. The story of a women who loses some of her memory in a car accident earned $125 million in the U.S. and another $71 million overseas. That means the $30 million film turned a nice profit for Sony‘s ScreenGems division.

Tatum is also part of the sixth-ranked couple on our list with Amanda Seyfried. Their 2010 movie Dear John earned $80 million in the U.S. and another $35 million abroad. That film was based on a Nicholas Sparks book. The author is a Hollywood gold mine of romantic plots. The movie version of his book Safe Haven is the biggest romantic film scheduled to hit theaters this Valentine’s Day.

Two other couples made our list from Nicholas Sparks movies. Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus place eighth with $63 million for The Last Song. The 2010 film was not only a hit with romance fans, it also sparked a real-life love story: Cyrus and Hemsworth, who met on the set, are now engaged to be married.

Ranking ninth just behind Hemsworth and Cyrus are Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling. The couple lit up the screen last year in The Lucky One, also based on a Sparks book — the film grossed $60 million. Efron, best known for playing Troy in the High School Musical movies, played an Iraq war vet looking for a woman whose photo he believed helped save his life. The success of the film should help Efron move beyond his teen heartthrob status.

#10 – Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson

$59 million
Water for Elephants didn’t do Twilight numbers but it was a small success earning $117 million at the global box office on an estimated budget of $38 million.

– Forbes.com