Weekend Box Office: Harry Potter Kicks the Pooh out of Box Office

Although the first seven films in the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise grossed more than $6.3 billion in worldwide box office, still nobody expected the eighth and final installment to crush every major box office opening record to date. It did.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2‘ now holds the record for biggest domestic opening weekend with $168.5 million, as well as opening day records in the U.S. ($92.1 million), the U.K. ($14.8 million), Mexico ($6.1 million), Australia ($7.5 million), Italy ($4.6 million), Sweden ($2.1 million), Norway ($1.8 million), the Netherlands ($1.7 million), Denmark ($1.6 million), Belgium ($1.4 million) and Finland ($749,000). Adding its domestic box office with its staggering $307 five-day overseas opening, the final ‘Harry Potter’ film has already nabbed $475.6 million. ‘Part 2’ also holds the record for largest midnight opening with $43.5 million.

Although ‘Part 2’ is already a triumph across the world, its 3D numbers aren’t so great. Worldwide, 60.1% of tickets sales resulted from 3D showing. However, domestically, only 43% came from 3D sales.

Pooh and friends returned to big screen with ‘Winnie the Pooh‘, earning its expected $8 million. While ‘Harry Potter’ obviously won the box office race this weekend, ‘Winnie the Pooh’ ought to attract more viewers throughout the next few weeks. Children who currently love Pooh and adults who grew up with the books will love how ‘Winnie the Pooh’ returns the characters to their classic form.

Poorly-reviewed indie flick ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan‘ opened with a measly $136,000 on 24 screens. Positively-reviewed but completely scatterbrained documentary ‘Tabloid‘ opened with $101,000 on 14 screens.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon‘ suffered another 55% drop-off, bringing in only $21.2 million in its third weekend, but that’s still enough for the #2 spot. ‘Horrible Bosses‘ is the fourth R-rated comedy this summer to come out a proven winner. It has earned $60 million on a $35 million budget in two short weeks.

Top 10:

1. ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’ (Warner Bros.) – $168,550,000

2. ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ (Paramount/DreamWorks) – $21,250,000

3. ‘Horrible Bosses’ (Warner Bros./New Line) – $17,630,000

4. ‘Zookeeper’ (Sony) – $12,300,000

5. ‘Cars 2’ (Buena Vista) – $8,344,000

6. ‘Winnie the Pooh’ (Buena Vista) – $8,000,000

7. ‘Bad Teacher’ (Sony) – $5,200,000

8. ‘Larry Crowne’ (Universal) – $2,573,000

9. ‘Super 8’ (Paramount) – $1,925,000

10. ‘Midnight in Paris’ (Sony Pictures Classics) – $1,891,000

10 comments

  1. Robbert

    I went to the night screening of HP. They were showing it on a total of 10 screens spread over 3 theaters in my city (The Hague, the Netherlands). I was surprised how crowded it was.

    • Just the one theater near me was showing it on all 13 screens, with many of the shows sold out. There have got to be 10 theaters within 15 minutes of my house, all were doing midnight showings, many theaters were showing it on all their screens. This movie is HUGE!

    • Luke Hickman
      Author

      Not to brag or anything, but the top three theaters for midnight sales in the U.S. are all located in the greater Salt Lake City area. Each one sells every single screen for at least one late night show. One of the theaters even sells 3AM showings to meet the demand. ‘Potter’ fans around here go BONKERS for their HP fix.

    • The movie studios’ initial box office figures include esimated numbers for Sunday, based on how the movies performed Friday and Saturday. The final official count is released on Monday.

      The Sunday estimates are usually pretty accurate. It’s rare that the final count is significantly different.

    • Luke Hickman
      Author

      Jane, I couldn’t be more pleased that you are rooting for ‘Midnight in Paris’ too!