UPDATE: USA Today is reporting the midnight number for Half-Blood Prince as $22.2 million.
Well, how do you think the Wednesday/Thursday box-office results for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince are going to shake out now that it is being reported the film pulled in a record $20 million in midnight showings alone to beat The Dark Knight‘s previous record of $18 million and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith‘s $17 million?
Just yesterday our Box-Office Oracle, Laremy Legel, got his predictions in just under the gun and estimated a whopping $60.1 million for Wednesday and another $34.7 million for Thursday. Such ambitious predictions have it besting the $91.1 million two-day haul of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen… Will it be so? Revenge of the Fallen is already $4 million in the hole if we go off midnight screenings alone with its $16 million earned earlier this year.
To date, the highest grossing Harry Potter film remains the first one, which took in $317 million domestically and $974 million worldwide. Can Half-Blood Prince top that? I have heard people discussing the $1 billion worldwide possibility, but I am also already seeing a lot of complaining from fans regarding changes from the book to the film. It will be interesting to see how it all fleshes out.
