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Harry Potter Destroys “The Dark Knight” Midnight Screening Box Office Record
Now this could get interesting. As you know, the other day I posted here on The Movie Blog wondering if Harry Potter could in fact beat “The Dark Knight” box office record. Well… things seem to be off to a good start for the young wizard.
The previous midnight screening box office record was held by The Dark Knight which made $18.5 million. Harry Potter just beat the crap out of that by taking in over $22.2 million. Good freaking grief! That’s more money that a lot of movies make in their entire runs. $22.2 million on just the midnight screenings?!?!?! Are you kidding me!?!?!
The Dark Knight currently holds the 5 day opening record with $203.7 million. Could Potter actually pass that by the end of the weekend? The short answer is yes it can. Will it? I’m not sure… but man it’ll be close.
It will. Never underestimate the power of JK Rowling and family movies.
The Harry Potter series isn’t successful because JK Rowling wrote it(obviously). It’s successful because it’s good, solid, entertaining storytelling(though that mostly applies to the books).
Even the new Alvin and the Chipmunks did SOMETHING right. Although, what that something is, I’m not quite sure. Probably the whole talking chipmunks thing.
it didn’t beat the opening day record, so that’s good.
Keep in mind that Dark Knight opened on a Friday and more people go to the movies on a Friday. Revenge of the Fallen opened on a Wednesday and Harry Potter didn’t make more than that.
I went to a midnight screening and all I got was this post.
Whoever is in charged of the HP films need to fucking die. Im not exagerating. They need to be shot. Im atheist, i have no conscience about wishing people die.
Wtf was that??
I just saw it…
Wtf was that??
Where was Voldemort? WHY did they skip that whole castle battle scene???? WHY!!! WHYYY!!! And where was Bill? Cahrlie? AGGH!!!!
And “Its just a movie, they cant fit everything” is a bullshit excuse, because the romance was perfect, the only good part of this movie, but there where only FOUR!!!!! FOUR!!! four death eaters in the entire movie! Thats SO PUSSY! This movie was the pussiest HP movie ive ever seen. The death eaters were so measly it hurt. In that book children died and Greyback bit Bill and there where dementors..UGH!
I dont know if this is what Star Wars fans felt when they saw the last 3 movies, i dont know if its as bad as im feeling now or worse…but right now im fucking pissed at how badly this movie sucked. Ive never been this disappointed from a movie in my life.
I wish Gullermo Del Toro would have done this movie.
My thoughts exactly. I wish people would stop shoving the “they can’t fit it all in” excuse down our throats. Obviously, that’s true. We don’t expect them to. It’s about priorities.
You see, this is why I don’t want to read the books until the movies are done. I enjoy the movies, and I don’t want to find myself ranting on and on and on about how the films deviate from the source material. They are two seperate mediums, sacrifices have to be made for the film. If you want the book, go read the book.
After reading comments like this, I’m not sure if I even want to see it. Gullermo Del Toro would rock Harry Potter. Maybe they can get him ten years from now for a “re-boot”.
Thos
Usually i would say “Dont take my irrelevant opinion and go watch it”
But if you read the book you dont have a prayer to like it. Even if you didnt read it youll notice somethings up (Look at John, hes obviously pissed they didnt explain more then half the story) It failed so horribly, you cannot TRY to fuck up a movie like this.
Ive never been so emotionally moved in such a horrific way because of a movie before, fuck my life.
It makes no sence, why would they delete all the cool important scenes? And the fight scenes!!! I dont get it, i dont know who the fuck green lit this
I really, really, really disagree with you Hazmat. First off, again, IF IT WERE EXACTLY LIKE THE BOOK IT WOULD BE 8 HRS. LONG. I understand the book is better, but for god’s sake, saying that someone pussied out and that they should shot is a little pushing it. You don’t have to have every single thing in the movie.
Seriously, dude, calm down. You’re freaking out over nothing.
And on Guillermo Del Toro making this, if he had he would have made the same changes as any writer would. So in the end, whether he would’ve direct it or not, he would still have changed it and you still would have been pissed.
Poor Hazmat, I feel very bad for you sir. You sound just like me coming out of TF2.
I’m seeing it tommorrow in IMAX 3D and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to think of it. There are a lot of opinions flying about.
“I don’t know who the fuck green lit this”
IDK either, but the blame should go to the center source-the writer.
Not necessarily. Terrible scripts are everywhere, but they don’t actually get made until someone gives the go-ahead.
Haz, I don’t think it sucked, but it was pretty close. You got to admit, the bridge part was awesome
Im not just blaming it on the director, EVERYONE fucked up, even the stunt men and the lighting people, if youre a human being and were involved with this movie, and did NOT say “Hey, wtf are you doing? Dont you think we should include the important scenes? I dont think this is right” Then i blame you, you fucked up, i hate you, i hope you have a terrible death. And give me my 10 bucks back you greedy git.
Dragonslayer
Okay its cool that you liked it and i respect that, but youre not in my shoes, you dont know how i feel about it and what i expected of it.
And dude? Dont give me that “It would have been 8 hours long” thing again, no. No. That shit doesnt apply when they miss IMPORTANT VALUABLE pieces of the story, they didnt show the most important parts of the book. Im actually glad that they showed Dumbledore die and Harry at all. That whole movie was a wizard version of degrassi and 3 minutes of Quidditch
If you read the book, you would be asking yourself “How in the world did they miss this??? And why did they have this unimportant shit in the movie??”
If Luna Lovegood has more screentime and lines then Voldemort, Greyback and Belatrix then you fucked up.
Phill
LOL I liked TF2!! xD
So dont take my word, just watch it. But if you do dont read the books
You can’t always go in expecting the book. Like I said before, they’re two seperate entities and should be treated as such. Maybe they did leave out important parts of the book, but to people like me who haven’t read the books, it doesn’t matter. What matters is what was in the movie, and what was in it was awesome. If you want the book, go and READ the book. And besides, from what I understand J. K. Rowling has a lot of input as far as what goes into these films, so apparently she must have been fine with it.
Hazmat, I’ve read the book. There are points that I thought “oh, they’re missing this,” but I didn’t freak out about it. I’m not saying you are wrong to think these things. But we all knew beforehand they were gonna cut certain things out. I’m not saying your opinion is wrong and I respect it, but I’m just saying you shoulding freak out on what was bound to happen.
Okay
I would drop this IF the stuff they left out was like…Peeves, or Olivander the wandmaker, but they left out shit that was BIG.
Its based on the book, so im expecting the most important scene in the book to be in it, the final fight scene. Its a book about Voldemort, this one is ALLL about his present, past and future, yet he doesnt make ONE appearance. There are HUGE, important facts such as the Dementors and giants being recruited by the Death Eaters, the killing of children at the end, the important talk they had at Dumbledores funeral, all the things Lupin said to Harry, Mad Eye Moody!! the Death Eters army torturing people who might help the good guys, The Minister of Magic meeting muggle leaders to inform them about the upcoming war, the missing people that Voldemorts killing, the fact that Dumbledore is trying to get help for the war coming up, THIS is important shit, now- the stuff they showed…the kissing, quidditch, the crying, the buddy hugs, it was sad and weird, but a part of Harry Potter- so they had THAT and they didnt say ANYTHING about Voldemoirts current plans???????? I guess its just me freaking out
“The book is one thing and the movie another”
YES- thats right but (Really? do i have to explain this?) when you dont do shit faithfully and RIGHT from the source material people who havent read the book will watch the movie and say
“What the fuck? This movie makes no fucking sense! So how did Voldemort not make one appearance? Its okay, im not worried, at least they showed the intensity of Ron and Lavenders relationship while Voldemort, the dude whos killing Muggles like Hitler killed jews, is murdering more then Shindler”
Johns review is a oerfect example of this, he hated the movie because he didnt know wtf happened, yeah- NO SHIT, half the story was untold!
So they said “Fuck it we dont need this shit” to the important things like…appocalipse and the important stuff like deaths, and say “Hell yeah lets show this” to everything about the book that had nothing to do with the general plot of Harry Potter
And as for Mrs Rowling, im 1000000% shes fucking pissed. Half happy, because of the cash, but she probably cried in the movie.
I agree with HAZMAT.
If you’re gonna make a movie based off of a book or already written story, it is important to cover all key plot points. Love stories and relationships are tiny tiny subplots that dont matter when you have HUGE, very important plot points to cover. Guaranteed, people would enjoy the Harry Potter movies a HELL of a lot more if they actually showed all of those key plot points because they usually have a LOT of magic and bad ass creatures in them.
Why they decided to take out almost all the magic from a movie about WIZARDS and turn it into a teen drama with wands, I will never know.
Hopefully they do the last book right. With two movies to explain the story, not having enough time to cover all necessary ground will not be an acceptable excuse.
And John is probably wondering (Not just John, people like John who saw the movie and not the book)
“Why the fuck cant Voldemort just go into Harrys harmless Muggle uncles and kill them all in one secound before Dumbledore gets there- which would be like an hour later??”
Thats a question i would have asked if i only saw the movies
Because of the whole thing Harry has with his uncles because of his mom, AND the ministry of magic is turning against them
Oh another thing, and i thought they left out big shit- but this, this is even bigger
Dumbledores will, that was tragically important
“There are HUGE, important facts such as the Dementors and giants being recruited by the Death Eaters, the killing of children at the end, the important talk they had at Dumbledores funeral, all the things Lupin said to Harry, Mad Eye Moody!! the Death Eters army torturing people who might help the good guys, The Minister of Magic meeting muggle leaders to inform them about the upcoming war, the missing people that Voldemorts killing, the fact that Dumbledore is trying to get help for the war coming up, THIS is important shit, now- the stuff they showed…the kissing, quidditch, the crying, the buddy hugs, it was sad and weird, but a part of Harry Potter- so they had THAT and they didnt say ANYTHING about Voldemoirts current plans???????? I guess its just me freaking out.”
Dude, the idea is that HP6 is the calm before the storm. I’ll bet you anything that they are going to put a lot of this, or at least stuff related, in the next movie. Seems to me that that would be structurally correct, seeing as Deathly Hallows will take up two movies. In the books, almost all the buildup is in six and all hell breaks loose in seven. But in movies, it’s all gotta happen pretty quickly when you’re leading up to a specific dramatic element.
I agree with Babz…
“Never underestimate the power of…family movies.”
“Family movies” or “family-friendly movies”? The first season or so of Buffy the vampire is often quite kid-friendly, but that does not mean it was made for kids. Which, it wasn’t.
Besides, even the Half-Blood Prince book was dark. Same with The Order Of The Pheonix. How much lighter could the Half-Blood Prince movie possibly be? I don’t buy it.
“even the Half-Blood Prince book was dark”
Wow.
Biggest understatement ive ever heard in my life, perhaps?
I am interested in seeing the film but 3 things
1) This does not look like a family film
2) Transformers 2 will make more money then this film.
3) Transformers has bigger effects
4) Transformers sucks
As much as I agree with your Chris I highly doubt TF2 will make more money than Half Blood Prince. I loved and enjoyed TF2 but i havent seen Half Blood Prince yet, i will try an watch it over the weekend.
I actually agree and disagree. I agree with what you said about Harry Potter not being a family film (even though my whole family saw it and didn’t have a problem). For some kids it won’t do. However, “Transformers will make more because it has bigger effects?” I don’t agree with or understand that comment.
I don’t think Half-Blood Prince will beat TDK in 5 days because it didn’t beat TDK or TF2 on the first day. Also, TDK’s $533 million is hard to beat. None of the other Harry Potter films made over $400. The only Harry Potter film that made over $300 was Sorcerer’s Stone, which only made $317 million. All the others made under $300 million. So with that track record, beating TDK at $533 million is unlikely.
That’s just an incredible number for midnight showings
Yes, HP will not beat TDK boxoffice numbers. On average, the previous 5 HP films made only about half the amount of TDK.
My buddy went to see it at midnight and regretted it. He bought a large soda and drank most of it within the first half hour of the movie. Lets just say he had to take a mean piss throughout the whole movie. He said it was 2.5 hours - is that right?
Yeah. Same thing happened to me on this film.
I still don’t see the appeal of these movies just like I never saw the appeal of the Lord of The Rings movies. I suppose it could have been worse and had been a movie starring the fucking Jonas Brothers who a poisoning the youth of America as we speak.
It appeals to us because each year Harry grows and you grow with him.
To each his own I guess.
You’re freaking kidding me. Fellowship Of The Ring had one of the most awesome plots in a fantasy film, ever. It was so intense that if they wanted to they could have ended the film halfway, around where Gandalf and the Balrog fall into the pit. But then it just keeps going, and continues to keep your eyes glued to the screen. THAT is entertainment.
The issue is not the appeal. It’s just that after you’re drawn in you’re disappointed by how little is really there. So it is with the Harry Potter movies, in general.
I have a feeling that the new one may be different in that respect, as, unlike for past HP films, there is a heck of a lot of controversy surrounding it.
Harry Potter 6 Sets One-Day Worldwide Record
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince earned $104 million worldwide during its first day in theaters on Wednesday, setting a new record.
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=57230
…uh-oh
Absolutely the worse Potter film yet! No story line… no plot… I fell asleep it was so lacking in teeth. Action was dull and the acting was way off mark. I was truly disappointed
This is great. It’ll be nice to see the film beat out The Dark Knight’s record.
Phil Gee where? I found the only city was Chicago for the 3-D IMAX due to the Tran 2 contact obligations. Even LA and NY are out of IMAX for HP until end of the month.
I live in England sir; you don’t keep us lot from a Potter flick and the best way to see it.
I think the success of the midnight screenings shows Potter has a larger hardcore fan base right now then maybe even star wars. There is no way that Harry Potter 6 is going to make more money then Transformers 2.
Harry Potter draws the masses: kids, teens, girls, old people, Bears.
Batman draws a smaller crowd: mainly late teens to young adults.
The reason why Harry potter won’t beat Dark Knight in overall box office, is because Dark Knight was such a better movie. It got so much repeat business. Once people see Harry Potter, they ain’t going back. This film was a bore-fest.
I’ve seen it twice, along with a few others I know, so that’s not necessarilly true.
Algoresnuts
That was beautiful
agreed 100%
I completely agree. Most people won’t go back to see Harry Potter a second time.
I think it’ll bore some more than others. I agree that Dark Knight was a better movie (best film of 08 if you ask me), but if I had money, I’d go back again
I’m not sure you’re correct. A lot of people love this franchise, and each film has made a fortune, so yeah, I personally think it’ll make more money then TDK, but again, that’s just me.
Im not saying T2 will make more money cuz it has bigger effects I am saying T2 will make more money because is a better summer movie. Bigger effects, Some of it was shot of IMAX which makes it amazing on IMAX,
HP6 will not beat Dark Knights Box Office Domestic or Worldwide total if u say that you are going to be wrong.
I think Transformers 2 will make more money then potter and hope it does but I could be wrong. The last potter beat transformers but I dont think this one will since transformers is making so much more worldiwide then the 1st one did.
Transformers 3 will kick the shit out of Harry Potter 8. Bay will listen and fix the mistakes!
This Transformers doesn’t have that much more than the last one. It shot out of the opening like a rocket but quickly slowed into orbit. T2 only has 733 M worldwide, Transformers 1 made only 707 M. Financially, if they wanted to beat the first one, they did alright. But I’d say Transformers did very well. I’m guessing potter lands in somewhere between 800-900 M
I don’t think HP will come close to TDK domestically, but foreign it definitely will beat it, and may even pass it worldwide gross.
Transformers 2 shot out of the gate, and it’s been dropping fast. Domestically I think it tops out around 400 at best.
Total gross, Potter is going to crush Transformers 2. Sorry, it’s just a fact. Every Potter movie save #3 (795) has made over 800 worldwide. Transformers 2 might get there, but I don’t think it will.
I think HBP will finish with about 900 worldwide, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it go past 1 bill. Transformers 3, lol… Deathly Hollows is the best book in the series by far, if the director makes the movies right, it will crush Transformers.
Btw, speaking of the Dark Knight, it’s the one year anniversary of it today. Wow, one year ago already.
365 days ago right now I was sitting in a theater lol
Keep in mind that this is specifically talking about the MIDNIGHT screenings. This is simply comparing those results. Not weekend.
Box Office Report has a very early estimate of 78 M for the weekend and 160 M total. They usually aren’t far off so it probably got 80 something this weekend. Dang! Why’d I have to change my prediction on the box Office Derby!?