Weekend Box Office: July 15-17

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 - $168.5 million

2.  Transformers: Dark of the Moon - $21.2 million

3.  Horrible Bosses - $17.6 million

4.  Zookeeper - $12.3 million

5.  Cars 2 - $8.3 million

6.  Winnie the Pooh - $8 million

7.  Bad Teacher - $4.2 million

8.  Larry Crowne - $2.5 million

9.  Super 8 - $1.9 million

10.  Midnight in Paris - $1.8 million

Damn, and I thought Winnie the Pooh had a shot at this weekend.

I kid, I kid.  As predicted, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 dominated at the box office this weekend (and at this point, probably the year as well), and smashed a few records along the way.  Among them:   

-The highest grossing opening weekend ever, beating The Dark Knight's $158 million opening in 2008.  Don't worry, Bat-fans, you have your shot at taking this back next summer.

-The highest opening day record of $92.1 million, beating out The Twilight Saga: New Moon's $72 million opening day in 2009. 

-The highest midnight opening with $43.5 million, which beat out The Twilight Saga: Eclipse's $30 million from midnight screenings in 2010.

It also now holds the record for the steepest Friday-to-Saturday, non-holiday drop, falling 53% to earn $42.8 million.  However, that still ranks as the ninth highest-grossing Saturday on record, so that doesn't really matter in the long run.  Worldwide, the final Harry Potter film has already grossed a staggering $476 million.  Damn.

As far as the 3D is concerned?  Still not so hot.  Despite this being the biggest 3D release this year with more than 3000 screens (and 274 IMAX screens), the 3D tickets still only accounted for 43% of the gross.  And the 3D actually looked decent on this one, but honestly, it never needed it.

Believe it or not, other studios did release movies this weekend, and judging by the parade of little ones I saw while waiting on line for Harry Potter yesterday, the most popular non-Harry Potter new release was Disney's Winnie the Pooh.   That film did all right, but nothing spectacular, opening with $8 million.  That's actually a bit behind Cars 2, which earned another $8.3 million.  Considering the target audience, I suspect this will be a more popular video release than a theatrical one. 

Next weekend sees our last superhero for the summer, as Captain America arrives in theaters.  That one looks pretty damn good too.  How will the First Avenger hold up against Harry Potter's second weekend?  I think it will be fine.  Stay tuned...