Harry Potter cast a final spell on theaters, scoring the largest weekend on record with the boy wizard's swan song.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, the eighth adaptation of the J.K. Rowling fantasy book series, opened to $168.6 million, according to studio estimates from box office trackers Hollywood.com.
The debut eclipses The Dark Knight, which opened to $158 million in 2008 and went on to collect $533 million.
Analysts say Hallows would have a tough time breaking Avatar's $761 million record gross, but no one is doubting Potter's power.
"It's truly hard to guess where this will end up," says Tim Briody of boxofficeprophets.com. "This is truly the biggest film event in many, many years."
Hallows was a record-breaker out of the gate. By Friday, the movie had done $92.1 million, shattering the previous mark of $72.7 million set in 2009 by The Twilight Saga: New Moon.
Other records followed. The film set new highs for biggest midnight screening ($43.5 million) and biggest IMAX film ($15.5 million), according to hollywood.com.
According to Box Office Mojo, one out of every four movie tickets sold this weekend was to Potter. Final estimates are due Monday.
The film marks a fitting farewell to a series that has become the highest-grossing franchise of all time. The movies have done $2.1 billion in North America alone and average $263 million.
Critics have been as supportive as fans. Hallows earned a thumbs-up from 97% of the nation's critics, according to survey site rottentomatoes.com, the highest for an entry in the series. Another 93% of fans gave the movie a thumbs-up, according to the site.
Glowing critical and fan reaction "will bring out almost anyone who had even a casual interest in the books and movies," Briody says.
That didn't leave much room for other films. Jane Hoop Elementary: The Final Rush: Part 2, another fitting farewell but to their series, fell only 41% from its opening weekend last week to take a strong second to $79.4 million, and coming up to the top five this year to $262.5 million, shattering Avatar's $75.4 million to become the biggest second weekend debut to date, but it would be very difficult to reach Avatar's domestic total.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon fell 55% from its debut to take second place and $21.3 million. The film, which has done $302.8 million, becomes the first to surpass $300 million this year, replacing Sonic X: The Final Stand's domestic total of $297 million to become the highest-grossing film domesically of the year.
The comedy Horrible Bosses was fourth. with $17.6 million The Kevin James comedy Zookeeper rounded out the top 5 with $12.3 million.
The only other newcomer, the Disney cartoon Winnie the Pooh, was seventh with $8 million, about $2 million below projections.
Hallows' colossal opening pushed summer ticket sales ahead of 2010's by 1% for the year, however, the year remains 7% behind 2010 in revenues, 9% in attendance.
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