Box Office Update: "Hallows" Kills It

Well you can't say that the highest grossing motion picture franchise in history wasn't going to go out without making a huge dent in our wallets. This was inevitable since Friday, but Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has broken The Dark Knight's opening weekend record by a clear $13 million. The film did earn most of that from the gargantuan Friday debut, but despite the fall from Friday to Saturday, it held on rather respectfully from Saturday to Sunday. It's to be seen how off that estimate is when the final numbers hit on Monday, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a couple million up or down.

It's a massive accomplishment, but there were other milestones to be had this weekend. For starters, Transformers: Dark of the Moon became the first film of 2011 to bust past that pesky $300 million mark. I'll admit to playing a slight hand in that, as I saw the film a second time last evening. Both Horrible Bosses and Zookeeper held on honestly, as no threatening new comedies entered the market. That'll change when Friends with Benefits swings around the corner next weekend.

The most shocking failure of this weekend was poor Winnie the Pooh, which landed in sixth place with only $8 million. People complaining that their childhood was over after Potter debuted were clearly looking in the wrong place. My favorite success of the weekend, however, was Midnight in Paris, reentering the top ten this week just in time to blow past Hannah and Her Sisters to become the highest grossing Woody Allen film to date. So obviously this weekend at the box office was an improvement (a 46.4% improvement at that) upon last year, when Inception opened to the top spot.

1. Harry Potter...Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (First Weekend; $168.5 million)

2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Third Weekend; $21.2 million)

3. Horrible Bosses (Second Weekend; $17.6 million)

4. Zookeeper (Second Weekend; $12.3 million)

5. Cars 2 (Fourth Weekend; $8.3 million)

6. Winnie the Pooh (First weekend; $8 million)

7. Bad Teacher (Fourth Weekend; $5.2 million)

8. Larry Crowne (Third Weekend; $2.5 million)

9. Super 8 (Sixth Weekend; $1.9 million)

10. Midnight in Paris (Ninth Weekend; $1.8 million)