Biggest Tarantino opening yet:

Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” opened to a glorious $65.1 million at the worldwide box office, including a domestic haul of $37.6 million.

It’s the biggest Tarantino opening by far at the domestic B.O., and a major win for the Weinstein Co., which is handling the World War II pic domestically.

And per this discussion about “A-list stars flailing at box office”:

Brad Pitt’s name on the marquee likely broadened the audience beyond Tarantino’s usual fan base in North America.

“Nobody knows anything” continues unabated in Hwood:

* A-list stars on the wane, so doubtful Pitt can stem that tide. Check.

* Tarantino, whose last prominent writer-director efforts were way back in 2003 (Kill Bill Vol. 1) and 2004 (Kill Bill Vol. 2), doesn’t have as much ‘heat’ as he used to. Check.

* Reviews of Inglourious Basterds have been mixed. Check.

* Movie’s running time of 153 minutes translates into one screening per theater. Check.

* Movie’s subject matter — Jewish-American soldiers killing Nazis — is likely to have limited appeal. Check.

* It’s a period piece which don’t draw well with prized target demo (young males). Check.

* Weinstein Co. on the ropes and no longer a lock to open a movie. Check.

And yet with all that — and a confusing misspelled title — Inglourious Basterds is the biggest Tarantino opening yet.

Go figure.

What did you think of the movie?

UPDATE: This analysis from The Wrap about how Weinstein Co. did a bait-and-switch in marketing Inglourious Basterds:

“We had two very marketable elements — Quentin and Brad Pitt,” Tom Ortenberg, president of theatrical marketing at The Weinstein Company, told me on Sunday. “We wanted every bit of marketing we put out there to have elements to tell the message that this film kicked ass, with some gallows humor.”

But here’s the thing about good filmmaking. Audiences that went to the movie expecting to see Brad Pitt rampaging across Europe were not disappointed. They were rewarded with a good story and interesting characters — though not what they were sold in advance.

Exit polls were high, the Cinemascore was A-. Score one for good story-telling.

Note: Brad Pitt is in a little more than one-third of the movie.

Bigger note: That A- Cinemascore is a huge deal. This might have been another example — like District 9 — of getting ‘twitter pimped’ on opening night, thereby bumping numbers on Sat and Sun.