Harry Potter's power over moviegoers grows stronger with age, as the teen wizard conjured his best box office ever in his fourth outing, grossing $101.4 million on 3,858 screens for a magical $26,290 per play.
That gives WB's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" the fourth biggest Friday-Sunday gross of all time, displacing the previous franchise entry, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," and falling behind only "Spider-Man," "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" and "Shrek 2." The latter two opened midweek.
It's the only pic in the all-time top five that didn't open in May or June, making it the biggest holiday season bow ever.
Total worldwide take, including an additional 5,900 screens in 19 foreign territories, was $181.4 million.
Despite the first PG-13 rating for a "Potter" pic, demos for "Goblet of Fire" were similar to 2004's "Azkaban." Kids made up 42% of the aud, with parents another 20% and non-family adults 38%.
"This is the biggest weekend in Warner Bros. history," noted WB distrib prexy Dan Fellman. "With three more (Potter pics) to go, we're looking forward to leaving more marks in the record books."
"Potter" reached the stratosphere without setting any one-day records. First-day take of $39.4 million does tie it with "Spider-Man" for the biggest Friday ever, but that's the seventh highest opening day in history.
In a promising sign for playability, "Goblet of Fire" declined only 10% to $35.5 million on Saturday.
The first three "Potter" pics bowed with, in order, $90.3 million, $88.4 million and $93.7 million, with the first two opening in November 2001 and 2002 and the third in June 2004.
"Goblet of Fire" made $2.8 million on 66 Imax screens over the weekend, giving it a per-play average of $42,951. That's the highest ever in the giant-screen format, just beating the $2.7 million record set by "The Polar Express."
Thanks to "Goblet of Fire," weekend was up 21% from a year ago, when "National Treasure" opened to $35.1 million, followed closely by "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie."
(SOURCE: VARIETY)
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