‘Harry Potter’ Breaks Midnight Record with $22.2 Million

$22.2 million.   That’s how much ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’ made at its very first screenings at midnight Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.   This trounces the previous record for midnight showings of $18.5 million for last year’s ‘The Dark Knight.’‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ opened at midnight on a Wednesday last month.   At the time, that film’s $16-million take was the largest midnight run for a Wednesday release, a record ‘Half Blood Prince’ also took.   The last ‘Harry Potter’ film, ‘The Order of the Phoenix,’ opened on a Wednesday in July of 2007.   That film made $12 million in midnight shows, $44 million in its opening day, and ended up raking in $292 million in total, domestic sales.

Some analysts are saying ‘Half Blood Prince’ has the chance of breaking the $200 million mark by this Sunday.   At that rate, it has the chance of beating the current record for fastest to $200 million of five days for both ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.’

‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’ is opening on 4275 screens today, which is actually less screens than ‘Order of the Phoenix’ opened on.   All of this is without the aid of being on IMAX, as well.   ‘Transformers’ still has two weeks on its IMAX run, and ‘Half Blood Prince’ is not scheduled to debut on IMAX until July 29th.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter