LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – The final “Harry Potter” film shattered box office records worldwide with a whopping $168.6 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales over the opening weekend and nearly $476 million globally.
The staggering domestic total for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2” is the best three-day opening for a film ever, distributor Warner Bros said yesterday. It beat the previous record of $158.4 million over the initial three days for the 2008 Batman movie, “The Dark Knight.”
Internationally, the finale for “Harry Potter” captured $307 million in 59 countries since it opened last week, another record. That includes weekend sales plus Wednesday and Thursday for some markets.
The prior record for an overseas opening belonged to “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” the fourth installment of the series released in May, which took in about $260 million outside North America in its debut.
