With the "Harry Potter" film series winding down, fans rushed to theaters to give the wizard-adventure series a huge send-off. The seventh movie in the fantasy franchise, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1," opened with a fairy-tale figure of $125.1 million over the weekend. The flick powered through the past days with stunning momentum, picking up $24 million at midnight screenings Friday and zooming to $61 million by the end of the day.
The tally sets a record for the series, blasting through the previous "Harry Potter" opening-weekend, box-office benchmark of $102.7 million set by 2005's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." "Deathly Hallows - Part 1" is also the sixth largest-grossing opening weekend ever, behind massive debuts such as "The Dark Knight" and "Spider-Man 3."
Other box-office offerings limped behind the "Potter" juggernaut. "Megamind" continued its comfortable fun in the top five, finishing the weekend in second place. The Will Ferrell and Tina Fey comedy about the antics of a CG supervillain rang up $16.2 million. The movie's total estimated haul now stands at about $109 million.
"Unstoppable" arrived in third place. Audiences shelled out $13.1 million over the weekend to catch Denzel Washington and Chris Pine's runaway-train thriller. The film's tally now stands at around $42 million after its second weekend in theaters.
"Due Date" wrapped up the weekend in fourth place. The comedic pairing of Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. netted about $9.2 million, which bumps this film's total gross to around $72 million.
Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks' jailbreak action flick, "The Next Three Days," hit theaters in fifth place. Moviegoers plunked down around $6.8 million during the film's debut weekend.
Source: MTV