Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II nets $92.1m in single day, crushing the single day record and heading towards new opening weekend record ($175-185 million seems likely).

In November 2001, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone set a new opening weekend record by grossing $90.2 million in three days.  Yesterday, the series finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II (review) grossed $92.1 million in a single day. Let that sink in for a moment.  Yes, the eighth and final chapter of the Harry Potter series overtook the single-day record from The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which had grossed $72.7 million on its opening Friday back in (same weekend, natch) mid-November 2009.  Yes, some of this 26% increase can be attributed to the 3D price-bump (I imagine that Summit is in a room right now convincing themselves to convert the last two Twilight films to 3D).  And yes, the film earned a record 47% of its opening day total at midnight alone ($43.5 million).  But I'll let someone else complain about that.  Even with inflation and 3D prices taken into account, the film still sold 11.7 million tickets, the most ever for a single day (and a little over 2 million more than The Dark Knight and Twilight Saga: New Moon).  Even if Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II has the most front-loaded opening weekend in history (African Cats has the record with a 1.81x weekend multiplier), it still will likely dethrone The Dark Knight ($158 million) as the new opening weekend champion.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II crushes midnight record, with a $43.5m 12:01am haul. A $100m Friday and $200m weekend are within reach...

The final chapter of the Harry Potter series demolished its first short-term record right at 12:01am.  The film earned an eye-popping $43.5 million in midnight shows alone ($2 million of that was in IMAX alone).  That crushes the old record, Twilight Saga: Eclipse's $30 million midnight haul by 45%.  Now, to be fair, about 30% of that uptick could arguably be credited to 3D ticket-price bumps, but money is money.  It now looks quite clear that the opening day record (Twilight Saga: New Moon with $72 million) is almost guaranteed to be toast, and The Dark Knight's $158 million opening weekend haul is in jeopardy.  The worldwide opening weekend record (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince's $394 million five-day haul) is pretty much toast, as this finale has already grossed $126 million in two days heading into the actual weekend.  Let's presume (as we should) that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II may have the most frontloaded opening weekend ever.  As of now, African Cats holds the record, with a meager 1.81x weekend multiplier earlier this year ($3.3 million opening day with a $6 million weekend).  So, let's presume it has the smallest midnight-to-opening day and midnight-to-opening weekend number in recent history.

A look back at Harry Potter part V: Order of the Phoenix proves value of editing, creating one of the best films from the worst book.

This will be a six-part retrospective on the Harry Potter film series, covering films 1-6 (I think most Potter fans can remember the one that came out eight months ago...).  This essay will be covering Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

In my humble opinion, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the worst book in the seven part series.  It is obscenely long, endlessly padded, and painfully frustrating.  Yes, the frustration thing is intentional, as we're supposed to empathize with Harry as the original 'order of the phoenix' ignores him, as Dumbledore inexplicably avoids him, and as Dolores Umbridge torments him.  But the book is nearly 900 pages long, and the original novel plays out like one long waiting game before what is sure to be a massive climactic event and/or revelation.  As we all know, there is a big climactic event, but the revelation is halfhearted (wait... so Voldemort watched Gargoyles in the 1990s?) and undermined by an even more tantalizing reveal (that Neville Longbottom is actually the chosen one) which is shot down moments after it is introduced.  But the longest book is the second-shortest movie at 138 minutes (behind the series finale, which runs 130 minutes, although it's technically half of a single book).  Making his series debut, David Yates and screenwriter Michael Goldenberg (taking over for Steve Kloves just this once) trim every drop of fat from the overlong text, shaping a lean and potent bit of pop fantasy that is easily one of the best films in the series.