Harry Potter Makes History

Weekend Box Office (Estimates)

July 15-17, 2011

#1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Weekend Gross/Total Gross
($168,550,000 // Debut)

#2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
($21,250,000 // $302,800,000)

#3. Horrible Bosses
($17,630,000 // $60,002,000)

#4. Zookeper
($12,300,000 // $42,352,000)

#5. Cars 2

($8,334,000 // $165,326,000)

Working its final movie mojo, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 soared into the record books with the highest-grossing opening weekend ever. The series finale drew an estimated $168.55 million, dethroning The Dark Knight's $158.4 million.

How big was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2's opening day?

Record-shattering gigantic.

And, despite the film's tag line, it does not all end here.

Deathly Hallows Part 2 grossed an estimated $92.1 million Friday, Warner Bros. said.

The take was nearly as big as the year's biggest three-day weekend to date, and $20 million bigger than the opening-day record held by the Twilight franchise's New Moon.

Not only did it eclipse the midnight record held by Eclipse, but it was also Hollywood's largest-ever single-day gross, blowing away, among others, New Moon, Eclipse and The Dark Knight.

Speaking of Batman…

The box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations today guestimated the final Harry Potter will smash The Dark Knight's three-year-old opening-weekend record with a $175 million Friday-Sunday domestic haul.

So, to recap: Opening-day record; single-day record; opening-weekend record (probably).