I told you Harry Potter was going to be huge. Oh, what? I didn’t? Well, I should have. Actually, except for the times I see Penelope Cruz’ name attached to a project and know that girl is pooooisonnnnn, I’m short on prophetic power. Still, everyone saw Harry Potter raking in cash from 5,280 feet away. What I didn’t see, based on its BO track record, was the potential of Harry Potter being bigger than Titans of Summer like Pirates and Spidey.
My unofficial barometer tests like this: an office view overlooking the local movie theater and my alarm at seeing a fully packed parking lot at 2:30 in the afternoon. And parking lots don’t lie. Second (and definitely less empirical), midnight ticket sales: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix pulled in a heaping pile of $12 million alone in those first showings, beating the previous record holder Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which garnered $8 million. And that’s just the beginning. Potter is outpacing both Spider-Man and Pirates 3 in ticket sales, leaving the movie open for some big fat record breaking.
I’m no Dellamorte, but even with The Transformers repeats, long-tail and word of mouth to contend with, these numbers bode pretty well – especially with a big fat helping of 4,285 screens to open on.