Friday Box-Office: Is 'Harry Potter' Heading Toward a $180 Million Opening Weekend Record?

UPDATED: Official Friday estimates have been released and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 took in $92.1 million for a record breaking opening day, taking out The Twilight Saga: New Moon‘s previous opening day record of $72.7 million. That’s now two Twilight features Harry Potter has left in his dust after blowing by The Twilight Saga: Eclipse‘s previous record of $30 million with a total of $43.5 million from midnight showings.

Additionally, overseas the film took in $157.5 million as it now holds a global cume total of $249.6 million, which puts it on track to break the worldwide opening weekend record of $394 million, which was earned by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And yes, the domestic opening weekend record held by The Dark Knight of $158.4 million is expected to fall.

Elsewhere, Winnie the Pooh was the weekend’s other wide opener and it opened to an estimated $2.9 million on Friday, which should translate to about $9-10 million for the weekend should families continue to show support, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it end up somewhere around $8 million.

I will discuss the holdovers tomorrow morning, but I thought I would mention that Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris is now the acclaimed writer/director’s highest grossing domestic release of all-time with $40.4 million, besting the $40 million earned by Hannah and Her Sisters back in 1986. Of course, inflated ticket prices mean not as many people saw Paris compared to Hannah, but the numbers are the numbers.

My original, early estimate post follows, but I have updated the Friday top ten at the bottom of this post with the official estimates. Come back tomorrow for my official weekend wrap-up.

ORIGINAL POST: Okay, I am going to post this now and refine in the morning, only because the numbers Nikki Finke has posted at Deadline are astronomical when it comes to the opening weekend for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

First off, we already know the Potter finale set a new midnight record, blowing by The Twilight Saga: Eclipse‘s previous record of $30 million with a total of $43.5 million. That’s an absolute blistering.

The next and most obvious record in sight was the all-time opening weekend record previously set by The Dark Knight, which is $158.4 million. Obviously, with $43.5 million in the bank before Friday screenings started it was well on its way. And considering The Dark Knight only amassed $18.5 million in midnight ticket sales back in 2008, it’s safe to say Harry Potter had a bit of a jump on ol’ Batman.

But let’s brush aside that opening weekend record for a second as Deadline is reporting Deathly Hallows: Part 2 may end up actually end up crossing the $100 million mark on its first day. Considering 2011 hasn’t seen a film that crossed $100 million in its opening weekend this is a monstrous feat, but it doesn’t end there.

Finke is also projecting Deathly Hallows could end with upwards of $180 million by the end of the three-day weekend. Let me say that again… $180 MILLION!

Now I would be willing to bet we’ll actually probably see something closer to $90 million for Friday (Finke predicts $95 million at this point), but that is obviously more than enough to kick start what is likely to become an opening weekend record.