Deathly Hallows Part 2 Box Office Already Challenging The Dark Knight

Harry Potter box office numbers will be massive this weekend. The only question is how many box office records will be broken and whether the last installment will be the most profitable. Given how this is the last chapter, and it already has the best reviews of the series, the money will certainly be coming in this weekend. In fact, it is being racked up already, starting with the midnight screenings.

According to Deadline Hollywood, there have already been $45 million worth of tickets collected in pre-sales in America alone. In fact, the midnight screenings could bring in anywhere from $27 to $40 million by themselves. Anything over $30 million would break the midnight screening record set by Twilight: Eclipse -- and that could just be the beginning.

It was a given that Deathly Hallows Part 2 would have the best opening ever for a Harry Potter film and be the box office champion of the summer. Although Transformers: Dark of the Moon set the summer bar two weeks ago, it was always expected to be a placeholder. But the full extent of this finale's power is just now being unveiled.

Deadline Hollywood now not only expects Deathly Hallows to have the biggest opening weekend of all time, it projects it to shatter The Dark Knight's record of $158 million. In fact, thanks to 3D prices, Nikki Finke expects close to a $180 million total after three days. It also helps that over 4,500 theaters are showing the movie and there were over 10,000 sold out midnight screenings, according to MTV News.

Entertainment Weekly is a bit more modest, with its prediction topping out at $152 million. Yet even if the last movie short of The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. won't be disappointed, since it would have the two greatest openings in history.

Both Deathly Hallows and The Dark Knight got boosts from gigantic rave reviews, which could help Hallows maintain similar word of mouth power in the weeks ahead. Yet both movies had even more special circumstances behind it, as Knight became even bigger due to Heath Ledger's performance, and the fact that it would be among his last after his death. Fortunately, the greatest tragedy around Deathly Hallows is just that it is the last in the franchise.

It is almost fitting that the first trailer for The Dark Knight Rises is in front of this movie, since it may break the box office records of The Dark Knight. But Harry Potter has been breaking records from the beginning, although it may have saved the biggest one for last -- just like with the movie itself.

Sources

Deadline Hollywood- "POTTER FINALE PHENOM! $88+M Global As Harry Potter Already Shattering Records"

MTV News- "Harry Potter Expected To Smash Box Office Records"

Entertainment Weekly- "Box office preview: Harry Potter aims its wand at Twilight and The Dark Knight"