With an estimated $168.5 million Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 shattered The Dark Knight’s opening weekend record of $158.4 million. The Potter finale also earned $307 million overseas eclipsing the previous record of $262 million rolled up by Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The Potter finale’s spectacular showing was powered by a record-setting series of midnight shows on Friday morning that yielded $43.3 million (see “Potter Finale Poised for Record Weekend”).
The Deathly Hallow’s mammoth opening pushed the total of the top 12 films to potent a 46% gain over the top dozen during the same weekend in 2010, providing a rare huge win for Hollywood in a year in which, in spite of more 3-D films and higher ticket prices, box office totals for the most part have been anemic.
The Deathly Hallow’s mammoth opening pushed the total of the top 12 films to potent a 46% gain over the top dozen during the same weekend in 2010, providing a rare huge win for Hollywood in a year in which, in spite of more 3-D films and higher ticket prices, box office totals for the most part have been anemic.
| Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): July 15 - 17, 2011 | ||||||
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| Film | Weekend Gross | Screens | Avg./ Screen | Total Gross | Wk# |
| 1 | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 | $168,550,000 | 4,375 | $38,526 | $168,550,000 | 1 |
| 2 | Transformers: Dark of the Moon | $21,250,000 | 3,917 | $5,425 | $302,800,000 | 3 |
| 3 | Horrible Bosses | $17,630,000 | 3,134 | $5,625 | $60,002,000 | 2 |
| 4 | Zookeeper | $12,300,000 | 3,482 | $3,532 | $42,352,000 | 2 |
| 5 | Cars 2 | $8,344,000 | 3,249 | $2,568 | $165,326,000 | 4 |
| 6 | Winnie the Pooh | $8,000,000 | 2,405 | $3,326 | $8,000,000 | 1 |
| 7 | Bad Teacher | $5,200,000 | 2,659 | $1,956 | $88,505,000 | 4 |
| 8 | Larry Crowne | $2,573,000 | 2,287 | $1,125 | $31,628,000 | 3 |
| 9 | Super 8 | $1,925,000 | 1,459 | $1,319 | $122,242,000 | 6 |
| 10 | Midnight in Paris | $1,891,000 | 706 | $2,678 | $41,793,000 | 9 |
With a 97% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the final Potter film posted the best score with critics of any widely-released film of 2011 so far, and CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film an “A” rating, which indicates that it might be able to demonstrate solid “legs” going forward, though its mammoth opening dictates a major drop next weekend. Breaking The Dark Knight’s opening weekend record was huge, even though if TDK’s total was adjusted for price inflation, it would be $173 million. Still, only insiders pay attention to inflation-adjusted totals, so the amount of publicity generated by shattering all those records could result in a broadening of the audience for The Deathly Hallows, and indeed that already seems to have happened.
The audience for the Potter finale was more gender balanced (54% female versus 57% Part I) and included a higher percentage of older viewers (45% were under 25 versus 56% for Deathly Hallows Part I). 3-D showings accounted for just 43% of the immense Potter total, which is well down from Transformers: Dark of the Moon’s 60% share from 3-D. The Potter total was more in line with the vast majority of this summer’s 3-D movies, and it demonstrates a growing resistance on the part of audiences to paying higher prices for 3-D. That resistance is not as pronounced overseas where crowds are still flocking to extra-dimensional showings and 3-D accounted from 61% of The Deathly Hallows’ record-setting overseas opening weekend total of $307 million.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon declined 54.9% but still added $21.2 million to its 2011-leading total of $302.8 million. The “R” rated comedy Horrible Bosses dropped just 37.7% in its sophomore session and the talking animal comedy Zookeeper also suffered only a 38.7% decline.
Pixar’s Cars 2 suffered a 45% decline in its fourth weekend, but still earned $8.3 million and finished ahead of Disney’s “G” rated Winnie the Pooh, which debuted in sixth place with an estimated $8 million. The “R” rated Bad Teacher dropped 41.7%, but stayed in the top 10 for the fourth weekend. It is doubtful that any of the current “R” rated comedies will be able to catch Bridesmaids, which finally fell out of the top ten after10 weeks, but still added $1.7 million to bring its total to $161.2, which makes it the clear “R” rated comedy runner-up to The Hangover, Part 2, which has earned $251 million domestically and $561 million worldwide.
You can now officially stick a fork in Warner Bros. Green Lantern. The expensive tentpole dropped from #10 to #14 its fifth weekend of release as it earned a mere $1.2 million and brought its domestic cumulative to $112.7 million. It will be lucky to make $115 million by the end of its North American run. So far the film has only earned $33 million overseas, which certainly doesn’t help remove the “bomb” label from what Warner Bros. was hoping would become a franchise that would replace Harry Potter.
It now appears that J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard will take a lot of replacing—the eight Potter films were all hits and it appears that the last one will become the biggest hit of them all. A mong the records it set were the opening weekend IMAX totals (both North American, $15.5 million and worldwide $23.5 million) and the single-day opening mark of $92.1 million on Friday. But the Potter finale dropped 53.5% from Friday to Saturday (another record), which was due in part to the impact of the midnight shows on the Friday total, but also to the desire of hardcore fans to see the film immediately. Will the final Potter film have sustaining power at the box office? It is bound to suffer a major, perhaps record-setting drop from its first weekend to its second—and the steepness of that drop may have a lot to do with how Marvel Studios’ Captain America: The First Avenger does when it opens next weekend.
With all the pre-release hype and advance ticket sales modern movie blockbusters have become so front-loaded that it’s no longer suicide to open the week after even the biggest hits—at least that’s what Marvel is betting on. Stop by next Sunday and find out if that wager is successful.
