'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1' Is Biggest Opening in the Franchise

Since Friday at midnight, history is being written: the latest installment in the “Harry Potter” franchise, “Deathly Hallows: Part 1” was released and is now poised to make for a historical weekend at the box office, both domestically and abroad.

Right now, after midnight sales that came very close – but not close enough – to top sales of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” “Harry Potter” is well on its way of becoming the biggest opening in the franchise, Deadline reports.

Figures coming in from all territories where it's now playing and even estimates show that Warner Bros. has solid grounds to say that the film will become one of the biggest earners of all times, thus writing movie history.

“My sources are estimating $37 million for Saturday and $61.1 million for Friday from 4,125 theaters for the biggest installment in the Harry Potter franchise,” Deadline reports.

“Warner Bros is now saying Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 should translate to a weekend opening of $125M. That's a lot of moolah as HP7A bested HP4's $102M weekend opening and became #5 among all-time 3-day opening weekends,” the same report notes.

Internationally too, “Harry Potter” is faring admirably at the box office, especially in home country England, where it has surpassed even the most optimistic expectations.

“Overseas, the latest Harry Potter installment has earned $49M from 53 territories – 17% higher than HP6 in the same markets / same days of release. UK opened to £5.9M ($9.4m) with over 1 million admissions from 579 situations, which is the biggest single day gross of all time there,” Deadline says.

Of course, as amazing as these results are, they were seen coming my industry watchers: the promo campaign for the last two “Harry Potter” films, “The Motion Picture Event of a Generation” campaign, was kicked off about a year ago and has managed to make of the releases more of a cultural event than just mere films.

The fact that Warners played its cards remarkably well by marketing the conclusion of the “Harry Potter” franchise as something no longer just for kids will also contribute to its success, the same e-zine notes.