He may be getting older and struggling with love, but Harry Potter isn't losing his magic touch in theaters.
Despite its darker themes and a PG-13 rating, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire enjoyed the fourth-largest movie opening ever with $101.4 million, according to estimates from Nielsen EDI .
The debut is the largest of the Potter series and made the franchise Hollywood's fourth-largest ever.
The series has raked in about $930 million domestically, behind only the Star Wars, James Bond and Lord of the Rings franchises. (Related chart: See the weekend's top 10 films)
And Potter could overtake Lord of the Rings, which took in $1.1 billion, by the end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
"This is pretty unprecedented for a fourth film in a series," says Brandon Gray of Box Office Mojo. "Normally, these movies lose a little bit of steam."
Though the fourth installment of the Star Wars franchise, 1999's Phantom Menace, enjoyed the second-highest gross of the series, "that movie came 16 years after the previous one," Gray says of 1983's Return of the Jedi.
"There was a lot of built-up anticipation for another Star Wars," Gray says. "Potter is an uninterrupted series, and the movies don't even come that far apart. People are growing up with Harry Potter, and they're turning out to see what happens next to him."
Indeed, the story about a boy wizard coping with power and love continues to lure adults. According to distributor Warner Bros., 38% of moviegoers this weekend were adults attending without children.
Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman attributes the franchise's strength to its devotion to the books.
"We are really trying not to stray from the original story," he says. "That audience is so large and so devoted, there's no need to change things."
Final figures are due Monday.
(SOURCE: USA TODAY)
No comments:
Post a Comment