Box Office Opening, Harry Potter | featured news

Harry Potter cast a spell over moviegoers worldwide as the sixth entry in the fantasy franchise set a new opening record of $396.7 million, breaking the former global record held by “Spider-Man 3.”

WB pic casts spell over box office -- Warner Bros.’ “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” grossed a magical $58.4 million from 4,275 theaters as it opened Wednesday at the domestic B.O., including a potent $22.2 million in midnight shows.

Pic may score best midnight gross of all time -- In a massive start, Warner Bros.’ “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” easily scored the biggest midnight gross of all-time in earning $22.2 million as it unspooled in 3,003 runs at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

FRIDAY PM/SATURDAY AM: Sources tell me that Warner Bros' Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince made $26 million Friday for what's looking like an $80M three-day weekend and a $160M first-five-day total. "I guess the answer is pretty straightforward: No, Harry Potter 6 won't get close to Transformers 2," a rival studio exec emailed me tonight. "And it's faltering quickly, getting farther behind TF2 every day."

It's now officially a rock-'em, sock-'em summer! Paramount's Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen shattered the Wednesday opening record set by Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (#5) in 2007 - $60.6M vs $44.2M. Even better for the studio, Transformers 2 came in 2nd only to 2008 box office phenomenon The Dark Knight for biggest opening day ever: $60.6M vs $67.1M. So now 2007 Spider-Man 3's $59.8M single day take drops down to #3. The robot sequel grosses from 4,234 North American theaters are $16M more than Paramount expected. That puts the sci-fi actioner on track for a $175M five-day opening despite overwhelmingly lousy reviews. But Paramount boasted how exit polling showed that 91% of the audience said "they liked this movie as much or better than the first". So this Decepticons vs Autobots battle is reviewer-proof.