7/17/2011

Tops at the Box Office: Harry Potter breaks The Dark Knight's record


1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2- $169M
Take that, Batman! Harry Potter's final big screen adventure cast a spell over audiences in it's opening weekend in record breaking fashion. This was easy to predict when it busted the midnight showing record with $43.5M. Easily surpassing The Dark Knight's $158M opening from a couple years ago, as well as the $72M opening day record set by The Twilight Saga: New Moon. By comparison, Deathly Hallows pt. 1 opened at $125M.  Despite having the largest 3D opening ever(the first for the series), the format only accounted for 43% of the total share. This will all become moot once The Dark Knight Rises shatters this record next year, in my opinion.

2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon- $21.2M/$303M
After only three weeks, Transformers has passed the $300M mark and over $760M worldwide. Tell me again how this is supposed to be the last of the series? Yeah right.
3. Horrible Bosses- $17.6M/$60M
The first of two long legged R-rated comedies held strong in it's second week. At this rate there's no reason why $90-$100M can't be a possibility. Anybody think we might see a sequel?  Horrible Employees?
4. Zookeeper- $12.3M/$42.4M
5. Cars 2- $8.34M/$165M
6. Winnie the Pooh- $8M
Bad call, Disney. Bad call. Pooh deserves better than being ravaged against the Harry Potter machine, and the numbers show it. On the plus side, the budget was relatively small, and with the $6M foreign take, it's nearly halfway to breaking even. The hope is that families who took their kids to see Potter this week will turn around next week for Pooh.  This is still a better opening than the last Pooh film, Pooh's Heffalump Movie($5.8M)
7. Bad Teacher- $5.2M/$88.5M
8. Larry Crowne- $2.57M/$31.6M
9. Super 8- $1.93M/$122M
10. Midnight in Paris- $1.89M/$41.8M
While Woody Allen's older films would no doubt kick butt adjusted for inflation, Midnight in Paris still officially the director's highest grossing domestic film ever. Congratulations!